


Loving In A World Of Desire

by TheAstronomyMod



Series: The Deep Field Universe [3]
Category: Blur, BritPop (music), British Singers RPF, Damien Hirst (Artist), Radiohead - Fandom
Genre: Drugs, F/M, POV Original Female Character, Rock'N'Roll, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:37:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 239,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAstronomyMod/pseuds/TheAstronomyMod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third part of the Charms Trilogy, on a kaleidoscope trip through the Britpop 90s, starting about a year from the end of Death Of A Party, so that it is now the spring of 1998.</p><p>Conceptual art shows! Loft Living! Second album blues! Glam Rock Biopics! Football Anthems! World Cup Parties! Touring the States, again! Groupies! Drug addictions! Drinking binges at the Groucho Club with members of Blur, Pulp and Oasis! Being sneered at by Radiohead for drinking at the Groucho with same. Having to deal with your former lover/best friend, and the fact that the woman he left you for is now his "fiancee."</p><p>Amidst all of which, Kate Gordon falls properly in love, and gets married. Just not necessarily to the same person.</p><p>Content Warning: There is a great deal of rough sex and kinky sex involving consenting adults pushing the boundaries of control and dub-con, including sex with a sleeping partner and diminished capacity. This is in no way condoning rape or rape culture, but this may be triggering to some readers. There is also implied domestic violence and depictions of a toxic relationship turning emotionally and even physically abusive. I will put content warnings on appropriate chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year after Kate Gordon leaves Alex Jones, and London, for what she thinks is for good, a chance meeting at a bandmate's art party brings back all of those memories.

I stared at myself in the mirror, frowning mightily, finding fault in just about everything I saw. "I can't wear this," I finally protested, turning back around to face Maddie. "I look... I look..." I tried to search for a word which adequately described how bloated, how old and how maternal I felt, but Maddie cut me off.

"You look absolutely fantastic," Maddie reassured me. "Doesn't she look fantastic, Beth?"

"Fat, hideous, utterly horrible, can't stand to even be in the same room as you," retorted Beth without even looking up from her copy of the NME.

"That's it! I'm not going!" I cried, whirling around and disappearing back up the stairs, just in time to catch Maddie glaring at Beth. Throwing myself down on the bed in a fit of self loathing, I flicked the CD player on, and pressed play, and was immediately rewarded with the maudlin opening strains of my favourite Radioshack album. The thing had hardly left my stereo for the past year, seeing me through more crises and crying jags than any album of my life. Whenever I felt miserable, or sad, or was even just having a bad day, the plaintive wails of Thom Eboracum’s melancholic voice were enough to remind me that I wasn’t alone in feeling depressed or upset or even overwhelmed. As the chords swelled around me, I prepared myself for an evening in my room, sulking.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at my door. "Kate," ventured Beth softly.

"Come in, that is, if you're sure you can fit in the room with me," I retorted sulkily.

"I was joking. You look fine. Really, you do," she assured me.

"But I need a new body... I need a new pair of hips and I need new breasts!" I whinged, turning sideways and sucking in the slight protuberance of my belly. Actually, it wasn't that bad, even I had to admit. The dress was an absolute head-turner, a thigh-baring veil of thin black lace draped over an almost invisible flesh-coloured lining. I couldn't have picked anything to better shout _I'm not pregnant any more, just look at these legs boys!_

"You need a bra," observed Beth astutely.

"Beth!" I whined. Although my pregnancy had much enhanced my bust, the brief month of breast feeding had made sure that my new endowment no longer sat perkily at the top of my chest. "Where am I going to hide bra-straps under these tiny strips of spaghetti?"

"So? Let 'em hang out. If it's good enough for Jezebel videos, it's good enough for you!"

A brief operation of underwire cantilevers and suspension, and I stood back to observe the effect. The dress now hung properly, clinging at the top, yet loose and slinky at the bottom. "Alright," I finally sighed, picking up the pocketbook I had abandoned on the dresser.

"My god, sound the alarm," bellowed Beth down the stairs. "She's actually ready to go!"

"OK, OK, let me just call Carlos and tell him we're on our way. Are you sure you're not coming, Beth?"

"Um-hmm." Beth nodded mysteriously, checking her lipstick in the hall mirror. "But I'll walk with you as far as the subway." Something new was going on in Beth's life, and if she was behaving this secretively about it, chances are it was a new man.

"Subway?" I yelped. "I'm not going on the fucking subway dressed like this!"

"We'll be fine," dismissed Maddie, taking me by the arm, then taking Beth by the arm and breezing us both towards the door. "Shall we go? Carlos will have a fit if we're late for his opening."

"It's not just Carl's show," pointed out Beth cattily. "It's a joint show."

"It's still an incredibly prestigious event and I'm very proud and happy for him!" Maddie replied defensively, in a tone that indicated that their _"casual, low-key, friendship, let's see if it works just dating-type thing"_ was not as casual as she would like to pretend.

Trying to head off the unavoidable disagreement between the two of them, I tugged self consciously at the hem of my skirt. "Are you sure this outfit is appropriate, then?"

"Kate, it's in Soho," laughed Beth, successfully diverted from the hatchet she had never buried with Carlos over his treatment of Maddie. "I absolutely guarantee there will be at least one woman there, spray painted silver with duct tape over her nipples."

I laughed, starting to feel a spring in my step. Although it was nearly 8, the sun had still not dipped below the horizon, and the air was warm, even for Spring. An old man came out of his doorway, stared at us, and declared. "Saints alive! It's Charlie's Angels!"

Beth blew him a kiss, then skipped ahead of us to the subway kiosk on Astor Place. "Aren't you going downtown?" asked Maddie suspiciously.

"Nope," shot back Beth, practically skipping. "Uptown. Cause I'm an Uptown Girl..."

Maddie waved goodbye, but as soon as Beth was out of sight, her eyes narrowed sceptically. "That girl has a new boyfriend she's not telling us about."

"I'm sure she does, and I'm sure she'll tell us in good time." Pulling a token out of my pocketbook, I dropped it in the slot and sauntered through while Maddie fussed with her Metrocard.

"God dammit," she finally swore when the thing let her through, just as the downtown train was pulling into the station. "Hold the door for me..."

"The cards don't work!" I sang back tunelessly in my best histrionic rock god drawl. "They just make you late, but I know I'll see your train again..."

"Trying to make trains meet - you're a slave to tokens then you di-hie!" Maddie shot back without missing a beat, until we collapsed, panting and giggling on one of the benches.

"So who is this wanker Carlos wants me to meet?" I finally sighed. This dress I almost had on was certainly not for his benefit, no.

"He's not a wanker," insisted Maddie. "Carlos says he's very nice. Rob Sugarpussy is bringing him - he's the front man for his new band, and he's very excited about meeting you. Carlos says you two have a lot in common."

"Rob Sugarpussy?" I giggled. "Does he still call himself that? The Jesus Sugarpussy have been broken up for a good 3 years now."

Maddie blushed, holding her hand over her mouth. "Oh god, no. He's using his real name again now. Please, please, dear god, let me not slip up and call him that to his face."

"I don’t know why I’m letting you push me into this. It's going to end in tears, I know it is," I insisted pessimistically. "There's a reason I've been avoiding the dating scene, and an even bigger reason why I no longer date rock boys.!"

"Who knows? What's the worst thing that could happen? You could waste an evening drinking free champagne and looking at bad art in Soho. You never know - you might actually like this fellow."

"I haven't drunk in even longer than I haven't had sex," I pointed out. "I'll probably have one glass and fall all over myself."

"Just don't bend down... unless you _want_ to display your new knickers to Jon."

"Jon? His name is Jon? I simply can't date a man named Jon. I just can't do it, too damn generic..."

"Kate!" warned Maddie, standing up to indicate that this was our stop. "Just shut up and stop making excuses. You'll be fine."

We strolled up to the huge slab of a warehouse where the exhibit was taking place at 7:50 p.m., ten minutes before the doors were even supposed to open, and hours before the Beautiful People would even roll out of their beds. "Damn, we're going to have to ring the bell to be admitted, aren't we?" sighed Maddie, pressing the buzzer.

"Can't we just go get coffee for half an hour or so or something?"

"No! People are never on time for these things, and I promised Carlos we'd be here at 8, so it didn't look like there was no one here."

We had to be buzzed in, and a freight elevator was sent down for us, but the relieved look on Carlos' face made the embarrassment of being early worthwhile. "Thank god, you're here," he sighed, kissing Maddie quite fondly on the lips. "Kate, thanks so much for coming. Jon is so looking forward to meeting you..."

"So I've heard," I nodded, hoping it didn't come out as rude as it sounded.

"Help yourself to drinks, oh wait, I don't think they've got them set out, yet..." Carlos wrung his hands nervously. "Dammit, where is the caterer?"

"We can pour our own drinks, Carl, it's fine," Maddie assured him, squeezing his hand.

"Come on, guys, people are going to be here any minute! Let's the lights off, and let's get the music on!" he directed, clapping his hands. Although he was dressed in a hip, 3-button Italian suit and a black turtleneck in an attempt to pass for a serious artist, he was still every inch the Madison Ave. advertising executive he was pretending not to be. Still, he was cute, with his hair perfectly mussed, and a twinkle in his eye that I had not seen since before he had quit his band for the less exhausting and way more financially rewarding work of sourcing indie-rock tunes for soundtracking commercials. Somewhere under all the gel and the Italian silk still lurked the skinny, wild-eyed rock boy and painting student that Maddie had fallen in love with in her brother's garage.

Suddenly, the lights flipped out overhead, and a huge bassline started to throb through enormous sets of speakers dotted about the floor. "Bloody hell," I burst out over the music as a giant disco ball in the centre of the room sprung into action, pushing through the dark to where I'd last seen Maddie. Red and blue party lights flicked on overhead, infusing the cavernous hall with a dim, hellish, otherworldly glow. "What the fuck is going on?" I shouted at Maddie.

She shrugged, pointing at Carlos, arguing loudly with a short, balding man in ripped overalls and a white T-shirt. "There are supposed to be halogen lights pinpointing the artworks, but the electrician hasn't finished wiring them." Her knuckles tightened on the tray of drinks she was holding. "Would you care for some champagne?"

The music shifted in speed, settling into _Mamma Mia_. "Actually, yes, I think I could well stand for some right now..." Why the hell had no one seen fit to tell me it was a retro-70's theme party? If there was one thing I hated, it was 70's nostalgia... I mean, it would be fine if people meant Krautrock and early Funkadelic records, but they never did, they meant polyester suits and shitty, kitschy Abba records.

There was a loud crackle over the loudspeakers, the lights flashed for a second, and then suddenly tiny pin-points of light sprang up all around the outskirts of the room. That was a fairly lovely effect, even I had to admit, and the event certainly called for a drink. For a moment, I merely stared at the sparkling gold liquid in the glass, wondering if this was a good idea. It had been so long since I had last touched a drop of alcohol, through the mysterious morning stomach ailment that had turned out to be pregnancy, and then the brief blissful weeks of motherhood and breast-feeding... Well, Tristram had certainly put an end to that idea. My breasts ached vaguely at even the memory of the agonising weeks the milk took to dry up when my son was handed over to his biological father's custody. Loneliness shook me like a sudden chill. The most heart-wrenching break-up in the world could not have prepared me for the pain of losing Ian in the custody battle. Still shivering slightly, I stared down at the fizzing golden liquid in the glass, remembering the oblivion it could bring, and then took a sip.

_My god_! How could I have forgotten how good champagne tasted? It took every bone of restraint in my body not to swill it like a glass of soda and go running back for another glass. _No, down girl, your tolerance is probably down to nothing right now_ , I warned myself, and took a second, smaller sip.

Wandering over toward the art, I started to gaze at the paintings, one after another, trying to overcome my nervousness by at least pretending to have something to do, but none of them held my attention for very long. Carlos' were alright, I supposed, in a sort of glossy magazine photorealist sort of way. His technique was absolutely faultless, influenced by years of working in advertising, but he simply didn't have very much to say. There was one of a tall, slim woman with short, dark hair, probably Maddie in a younger, less inhibited time, naked except for a pair of rumpled cream-coloured silk panties, standing with her back turned to the painter, gazing wistfully out a curtained window, which caught my interest momentarily.

But the others... god, I might not know much about art, but I had no idea what the gallery curator could possibly have been thinking when he put these four artists together. One worked in collages of found objects, speckled with gnarled clumps of dried paint, while another preferred pseudo-primitive depictions of street scenes in garish tones of grey and red. And the sculptor? I wasn't even going to attempt to figure out what he was on about.

"Kate..." I turned around to see that the room was starting to fill with small clumps of people, one of whom was anxiously waving me over.

I stared at the nattily dressed young man beckoning me over for a few moments, trying to work out why his face looked familiar, but it wasn't until he grinned and I saw the gold tooth that I saw past the trendy new haircut to the face. "Rob Sugarpussy!" His face fell. Oh god, no, I didn't just call him that to his face, please... I'd only had half a glass of champagne, I couldn't possibly be tipsy. “Sorry. Rob. How are you?”

"Good to see you, Kate," greeted Rob, ignoring the faux pas and continuing where he had left off. "I want you to meet a friend of mine... this is Jon, the singer for my new band, Tractor. Jon, this is Kate."

"Hi. Nice to meet you." We shook hands nervously - _wet palm, ugh_ \- and spent the next few moments in the awkward but time-honoured tradition of checking each other out. Well, I suppose he was handsome enough in the de rigeur plastic Hollywood sort of way, though he looked more like a member of the cast of some television light romantic comedy with his baby sideburns and the short, stubby fringe of dark hair blow-dried inexplicably up, off his face, about an inch or two into the air. But as my eyes swept lower, taking in his clothes, my heart sank. His muscular frame was wrapped in a ill-fitting powder blue suit of some dubious synthetic origin. Ridiculous cowboy boots, cuffed trousers, and to top it all off, a brick red nylon shirt with an impossibly wide collar, open just about all the way to the buttons of his suit.

No, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt, I reflected as I noticed him taking in my ridiculously daring dress with obvious pleasure. Perhaps Carlos had told him ahead of time about the cheesy retro-70's _Boogie Nights_ theme to the party. "Man, this is such a surprise!" he contradicted. "I was a little, you know, worried, what with Rob's glam metal past, that this was going to be some sort of heavy metal nightmare, but no, this is cool, man. This music's got soul."

_Help me. Help me now. Please._ Hoping the abject horror didn't show in my eyes, I tried to smile wanly at Jon, but I already saw my hopes for an entertaining evening slipping away. The Jesus Sugarpussy had been called many things - glam-trash, drug-addled debauchery, even New York Dolls rip-offs, but never _glam metal_. I wondered if he'd ever even heard the band. How the hell had Rob, one of the most talented guitarists I'd ever heard, got involved with this joker? If this was what Carlos would have been reduced to backing had he stayed with the Sugarpussy, well, he was wise to get out when he did.

"So what do you think of the art?" I ventured, carefully changing the subject to neutral ground.

"Art?" Jon looked disoriented, as if he'd only just noticed the decorations on the walls. "Aw, sorry to disappoint, but I don't know much about art, nor do I really care. I’m just here for the free booze and the ladies, really." 

_Strike two,_ I thought to myself.

"So what label you guys on?" he immediately probed, then plunged on without waiting for an answer. "We just signed with MVC last month. Is it true you guys are going to go over to Warner for your next album?"

"That was just a rumour," I sighed, loathing musicians and the music industry in general. "We did the one off single for their New Order tribute album, but nothing further than that." For a moment, I wondered if he even knew who New Order were. "We're on Destructive in the UK, distributed in the States by MVC. We're happy enough with the arrangement."

"Destructive Records, huh?" That pricked his interest. "You know Mirage?"

_Did I know Mirage? Jesus Christ_... "We haven't been back to the UK on business in nearly a year," I answered non-committaly.

"We did a tour with them about a year back," he announced proudly, grinning toothily and revealing a row of pearly whites too perfect not to have been capped. "Well, it didn't last long. That William Gallivant, man... I went drinking with him one night, and, man, what a lunatic, what a guy..." Taking a deep gulp of my champagne, I did my best to try to tune him out. Even hearing about their aborted tour of the US brought back too many painful memories of Em Evesham, my former friend and Alex Jones, my former lover, that were better left untouched.

Suddenly, his attention was diverted by something else. I turned around to see a six foot woman with close cropped blonde hair undulating across the room wearing nothing but a coat of gold paint and what appeared to be a chain mail bikini. If Jon hadn't spoken first, I probably would have spit my drink out in laughter. "Now _that_ ," enthused Jon, nodding towards the shiny spectacle. "Is what I call a work of art..."

"Jon," I sighed delicately, touching the sleeve of his jacket. "Could you possibly get me another glass of champagne?"

"Coming right up, babe. Though you sure they ain't got anything stronger? Wine is such a faggot drink..." _Strike three, you're out!_  

As he moved away, the glittering woman caught sight of me and waved boldly, saché-ing over as only a woman wearing a chain-mail bikini can saché. "Hi," she interrupted in a slightly accented voice. "I can't help thinking that you look familiar. You must be with my agency... are you a model?"

I shook my head slowly. "No," I drawled. "Are you a brain surgeon?"

"No. I am performance artiste," She giggled nervously, a squeak of a laugh, as if she wasn't sure whether she'd been insulted or not. "I'm sorry to intrude, but is that Jon from Tractor that you're talking to?"

"I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Liesel. I am from Copenhagen."

"Liesel, would you like to meet Jon from Tractor?" I offered, my hopes leaping at the sight of a way out of the interminable torture of the rest of the evening.

"Oh yes," she purred. "I'm a huge fan..."

Jon magically appeared next to me, handing me my glass of champagne, his eyes popping out of his head with excitement that he was standing with the two most scantily clad women at the party. "Jon, this is Liesel," I introduced. "She's a huge fan of Tractor," I noted, taking their mutual goggle eyes as an excuse to beat a hasty retreat back to Carlos' paintings to find Maddie.

I found her standing with a gaggle of Carlos' co-workers, chatting pleasantly about the paintings, but as soon as she saw me, she excused herself from the conversation and pulled me aside. " _So_? What's Jon like?"

"Intolerable."

"Oh?"

"But that's perfectly alright with me, as I have the feeling that in about 3 months, he will be announcing his engagement to a 6' tall Danish model named Liesel." Turning around, I gestured with a snide wink to Jon and the Valkrie, currently attempting to dirty dance under the disco ball.

"Oh dear, I'm so terribly sorry."

"No, it's fine. I'm not devastated, trust me. Now I just have to find a way to entertain myself through five more hours of bad art and worse music."

"Oh, Kate." she squeezed my arm reassuringly. "I can introduce you to some of Carlos' co-workers, if you like. Some of them are quite good-looking." This had to be the most infuriating thing about being single - the way that all your married friends simply insisted on attempting on setting you up with anything in sight with the required Y chromosome.

"No, it's OK," I insisted.

"At least mingle a bit?" she urged. "Carl is terribly excited because his friend Matthew, who writes the art column for the NY Times - and incidentally owes him a very big favour - is coming, and apparently he's bringing a very important friend. Some 500lb gorilla in the art world, apparently. Name's... erm.. Day... Dave? Damon? Carlos, honey, what's Matthew's friend's name?"

"Damien Hearse!" shouted back Carlos, nervous, but obviously glowing.

For half a second, every voice in the room stilled, as if observing a moment of silence for the Holy Name, then the steady buzz renewed with even more vigour. My heart felt like it had skipped a beat, leaping into my throat and threatening to choke me, and the blood must have drained from my face.

"Why? Do you know him? He's apparently quite famous in these circles, though I'm embarrassed to admit to Carlos or his friends that I've never even heard of him," she whispered, but I barely heard her. Memories that I had been trying very hard not to dwell on for the past year came rushing back with a vengeance. "Kate, are you alright?"

"I've just had a little too much bubbly, that's all," I lied, trying to explain away the angry flush that my dress did nothing to cover. “Can we go outside for a bit?”

"Come on, then, let's get some air," suggested Maddie, taking me by the arm and leading me back towards the freight elevator. "Damn, it's not here. They must be loading something in downstairs. We should have taken the other one."

"No, that's OK." I wanted to run no risk of running into Damien back in the now surging crowd. Damn, when did this place get so full? I never understood the bizarre herd instinct that New York's Beautiful People seemed to have, this uncanny knack they had of suddenly turning up at an empty hall, so that none of them risked looking awkwardly early or succeeded in looking fashionably late.

"Oh Kate, come. It's here," Maddie pointed out as I was about to give up and head back into the thickest part of the crowd, seeking solace in numbers. The elevator ground to a stop, and the operator raised the safety grate to reveal a precious cargo of the man I assumed must have been Matthew, and Damien. He had cut his hair, his unkempt cloud of curly dark locks shorn to a blunt-looking buzz cut, but I would recognise that self-satisfied grin anywhere.

I froze, wondering whether to call attention to myself by dashing for the cover of the crowd, or to simply stay where I was, hoping that he would not notice me. But as his piggy little blue eyes swept the room, he immediately clocked me, stepping forward out of the elevator and bellowing, in a voice that was obviously used to being the centre of attention, "Kate Gordon!" I did not answer, could not answer, my face burning and my feet rooted to the spot. He strode over to me, not even bothering to look me up and down before throwing up his hands in the air and accusing "You never phoned me!" in an equally resounding tone.

Without even thinking what I was doing, and to whom, I raised my hand, took a swing and slapped Damien, full on the side of the face, so hard that the sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed around the club. Everyone had turned around to stare at us, the room suddenly silent except for the susurration of bated breaths and the ever present throb of the disco beat.

After about a minute, Damien's voice broke the silence. "Now _what_ was _that_ for?"

"You know very well!" I snarled back.

He paused, his eyes boring into mine, then took a deep breath and stepped forward slightly. "Go on, then," he offered, proffering the proverbial other cheek. "It's all yours." I raised my hand, then, catching sight of Maddie's panicked face, lowered it slowly. "Have you got that out of your system now?"

I stared at him resentfully for quite some time before Maddie cut between us. I could see the alarm in her face as she threw me a pleading glance. _Please, Kate, this man could make or break my husband!_ "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Hearse. Kate's had a bit too much champagne, and..."

Damien shook his head, waving her away. "No, I think the problem is that Kate hasn't had nearly enough champagne, or she would have hit me again while she still had the chance." Nice to know that his snide sense of humour was sill in top form. "I think Kate and I just need a few minutes alone to discuss this. Matthew, be a dear and get us some champagne?"

Carlos stared as the supercilious columnist scurried to do Damien's bidding like a mere servant, then quickly rushed off to the small smoking lounge area, clearing the couches with a single hissed phrased. _Damien's coming, Damien's coming..._ It was like a buzz in the air, but I refused to be intimidated, as I knew the little weasel thrived on the effect he had on people.

"Kate..." he ventured, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it as he sat down on the couch next to me, far too close for my comfort. I coughed pointedly and glared at him. "I like to smoke," he shrugged. "Every time I smoke a cigarette I think about death. Each sublime little puff is a confrontation of my own mortality."

"I don't have anything to say to you," I interrupted before he could divert the conversation into one of his self aggrandising tangential discourses. "Except one word: _Why?_ "

He glared back at me, obviously irritated that I had cut off one of his flowering plumes of erudition. "Kate, Alex might be my best friend, but the bastard was cheating on you."

"You lied to me!" I accused with perhaps excessive vitriol, then drew back and smiled falsely as Matthew handed us each a glass of champagne. Damien brushed him away with a wave of his hand. "You never even spoke to Alex that night at the Groucho. You saw him, alright, but you didn't even try to talk to him. He didn't even know that I was still in London. If you'd just said one word to that effect... one word, Damien, he never would have gone home with that Evesham woman, and... and..." I didn't know what it would have changed, really, but I was still so hurt and so angry that I was just looking for someone to blame.

"And what? Kate, look at me!" Leaning closer, he took my hand in his. "He'd suddenly remember you and go running back to you? Is that what you would have wanted? I did what I thought was kindest."

" _Kindest_?" I gasped.

"Would you rather have prolonged the agony of the separation through his impassioned apology, your magnanimous forgiveness of him, and then his heart-wrenching repetition of the entire scenario?"

"What makes you think it would have been like that?" I hissed.

"Did you honestly want a man that had to be continually verbally reminded of his girlfriend to prevent him from copping off with someone else?" I paused, shocked back into reality by this statement, then took another sip of champagne. Forget tipsy, I was drunk - that boisterous, dizzy but intensely fragile champagne drunk. "Kate, he was in love with that Evesham woman before he even knew who you were."

"But he loved me," I protested dumbly.

"He loved you passionately, madly, maybe even obsessively with all of his heart. But that man's soul belonged to Em Evesham a long time ago."

"So what the hell does she have that I don't?" I spat out vehemently.

"Oh, Kate, it's not even a question of that. I'm not even going to comment on who is a better woman or a better person. It's simply a question of a better fit."

"Are they still together?" My stomach lurched, but the answer didn't hurt as much as I had expected. Perhaps I was finally over Alex Jones.

"Yes. I heard they might be planning on buying a house together in the autumn, though why Alex would want to part with that charming little flat, I don't know. I hope he sells it to me, though. I could do with a Soho pied a terre."

"Is he happy?" I finally stuttered, afraid of the answer, whichever it was.

"Deliriously."

"Good." I was surprised to find that I actually meant it, from the bottom of my heart. If he had left me for a stupid, angry mistake, I would have ripped him to pieces and then kicked myself to death, but if he'd left me for the love of his life, well, I could hardly fault him for that. _No, wait a minute_ , I reminded myself suddenly, the fierce light of pride shining in my eyes again. _He didn't leave me. I left him._ That was one thing no one could ever take away from me. _I_ was the strong one. I left him.

"If you hadn't said that, I would have slapped you," teased Damien. "Now finish your champagne and tell me about this bad art I'm supposed to be looking at."

"Actually, I don't know the slightest thing about it," I confessed.

"Exactly why I'm asking you. Any art that requires a massive intellectual backpack is by its very nature shit art. I fucking loathe openings. All these people standing around murmuring the same tired platitudes to one another over and over. I avoid them like the plague back at home, but for some reason, the first night I spend in a foreign city, everyone seems intent on dragging me to them. At least with you I know that I will get an honest and original opinion, not merely a rehash of the latest issue of _Art In America_ or whathaveyou."

I laughed, leaning backwards and craning my neck to get a second look at the paintings. "Those are Carlos'. They're absolutely meaningless bits of pretty fluff, but they'll look perfectly non-threatening in the apartments of apartments of washed-out yuppies who burnt out on the cocaine scene in the 80's.

"The grey paintings," I continued, squinting at them dubiously, emboldened by the wine. "I don't fancy them at all, but they'll go over really well with people who like to bandy about the word ‘multiculturalism' in cocktail conversation."

"Even though they were probably painted by some French ex-patriot in Indian jewellery squatting in Camberwell," sighed Damien in commiseration.

"Williamsburg," I corrected. "And the rest, as they say, are what we would call album tracks."

Damon exploded in laughter. "I'm going to have to remember that one. Matty! Matty-Matt!"

Matthew darted over, obviously irritated at the new sobriquet, but trying not to incite Damien any further. "Yes... do you fancy some more champers?"

"Yeah, bring a bottle over, will you. But wait..." With an evil grin on his face, he proceeded to repeat my entire drunken spiel, almost exactly word for word, except for a few salt and peppered swear words.

"Damien!" I hissed in mock annoyance, punching him playfully in the shoulder as soon as the critic was out of earshot.

"Don't worry, he won't dare print that!"

"He better not! Carlos is a good friend of mine, actually. He's married to our drummer, Maddie. Look at them now, working the crowd. Funny to think that a year ago, the two of them were on the verge of getting a divorce. So far they've come."

"So what about you, Katie?" _So I was Katie again now, was I_? "How far have you come in the past year?"

I paused, sighing deeply and leaning my head back against his shoulder. Where the bloody hell did I start? Although at the time, it had seemed like I was barely moving, suspended in some sort of vacuum, only in retrospect did I realise how much we had actually accomplished.

"Oh god, let me think. In roughly chronological order... well, we went to Number One. I think that's one of the things we're all most proud of. Ah, so what if it was a bloody cover, _still_... Number One on the UK fucking charts." I shook my head in disbelief. "That doesn't happen to you every day." 

"What was it?" he asked curiously.

"New Order's _Bizarre Love Triangle_." 

Damien grunted appreciatively. "That was you? Dead good that was. We got off our kits at the Ministry of Sound one night, and they played the Carl Craig remix of it at about 6 in the morning, just as the sun was coming up. It was really brilliant. Pretty appropriate, if you ask me. Their idea or yours?"

"New Order's new label approached us, said the band loved us, and told us we could pick any song, for a remix or a cover." I still couldn't believe that he cared about these tiny minutia of my life. "I didn't have to think twice. The decision made itself.

"So then all sorts of major label people started sniffing around, making noises about buying our contract. But thank god we held our ground - Emma's to thank, really. Said she'd never be able to look her boyfriend Klaus in the face again if we signed to such a huge, corporate label. We thought it was nonsense at the time, but about a week later, on the strength of that single, we ended up negotiating a distribution deal with MVC on a pretty equitable cut."

"Good for you," guffawed Damien, pouring himself another glass of champagne. He offered it to me, but I shook my head, pacing myself, as I had no desire to spend the remainder of the night in an alcohol-induced coma.

"So there we were, working on our second album, with, like, this completely unheard of artistic control for a bunch of girls whom no one ever thought would have a second single. I had a recording console set up in my spare room, Maddie was sleeping in there, Emma was sleeping on the couch, we were all just learning what the hell to do in the studio without someone to hold our hands, and, then all of a sudden - disaster! We got thrown out of our house!

"The landlord stopped by unexpectedly one afternoon on a noise complaint, and found this utter chaos... I had signed the lease as a single professional woman with a boyfriend from out of town, and suddenly there's three people, fast on the way to four, basically an entire fucking band living and recording on the top floor of this posh brownstone.

"So I'm eight months pregnant, out on the street, with an album half finished in boxes on the sidewalk. Maddie went back to her husband at that point, but they were still having residual difficulties, so they decided they were going to ‘ _date casually_ ' for a while-.."

"How do you casually date your own husband?" interrupted Damien.

"Good question," I shrugged, then ploughed on. "Maddie and I were in terrible straits, Emma was living in what was basically a welfare hotel on St. Mark's Place and Beth's father – who owned her flat – decided to sell the building out from under her.

"So we took our entire accumulated savings, blagged an advance off the label, and bought ourselves this abandoned tenement building in Alphabet City. The place was a fucking dump - no heat, half the apartments had been disconnected from mains electricity, and there was running water in only two of the bathrooms, but somehow we camped out in one apartment after another as Maddie's brother Tony, and his architectural firm renovated them on the cheap for us. It's quite nice now, all snug and cosy, like the Monkees or something, but god, when we first walked in there, it felt like we'd just walked into hell."

"So what do you do if the band breaks up?" ventured Damien cynically.

"Pray it doesn't happen?" I laughed. "No, each of the four apartments is in each of our names, and the basement we knocked together into a recording studio. That we'll probably fight over, but I own over half of the equipment, so... It doesn't seem likely any time soon, though. If we've come through this much together, well, I don't know what it would take to actually break us up." I paused, reflectively sipping at my drink, and then refilling the glass.

"You've told me an awful lot of things about the band," Damien, observed. "But absolutely nothing about you."

"Same thing, most of the time," I laughed.

"Well, not completely. I mean, last time I saw you, you were several months pregnant, and now..." he probed, looking me up and down appreciatively.

"And now I'm obviously not," I teased, stretching a bit. As I slid down the couch, reclining against his chest, the back of my skirt had ridden up alarmingly, but somehow it didn't seem to matter right now.

I caught Damien's eyes flitting up and down the length of my body, rather flattered by the way his face lit up into that disarming leer. "Obviously not," he repeated. "Boy or a girl?"

"Boy." This was the part of the story that tore my heart out. "Ian Hamish Gordon. 9 lbs. 8oz."

"With a name like that, he'd better look Scots," commented Damien wryly.

"Blond hair, bright blue eyes - longest skinniest baby the nurses had ever seen. Absolute heart-breaker, bright, alert, personable... some babies are sick and cry a lot, but not Ian. He was an utter delight. But, when the birth was announced, well, someone counted back nine months on their fingers..."

"Tristram. Tristram Thornaby-Gore," supplied Damien, snapping his fingers. "I remember. It was in all the papers. I wasn’t even aware that you'd ever even known him, let alone...”

“Yeah, there was this huge court case, and next thing we knew he'd won. He ordered a blood test - I refused at first, but the court ordered one. Set all sorts of legal precedents, as it was the first time a _woman_ had ever sued not to have the paternity revealed. Of course, he was the father."

"How? Well, that's obvious... _When_?" He sounded more perplexed than judgemental, so I shrugged and told him.

"Too much acid at Glastonbury."

"I'm surprised more babies aren't brought into the world that way," he noted with a bawdy smirk.

"So Tristram mounted this huge, dirty, mud-slinging court case. He had a pair of dirty, ripped, underwear that I'd been wearing at the time, that he'd apparently been carrying around with him for nearly a year, the sick fuck, which were dragged out as evidence, simply to humiliate me and make me look like a slut. Jeremy's entire court history was dragged out in lurid detail - never mind that I'd not been arrested a single time! Just because I'd been unknowingly pregnant in this man's presence...

"He managed to find Jeremy's greedy, conniving bitch of a mother. This woman, mind you, has been dogging me since Jeremy died. She even went so far as to hire a private fucking investigator to dig up dirt on me in England, and he came up with some wild, completely unsubstantiated rumour that Jeremy's death wasn't a suicide - did you know that this bastard has a site on the internet, purporting to prove that I had Jeremy murdered in order to get my hands on his money? I'm still fighting the appeal on that court battle, and this crap is out there and there's nothing I can do about it legally without making his case look stronger. I don't give a fuck about the money - I've already given it to charity, to a home for runaway kids - I just don't want that bitch to get a cent of it!" Without even bothering to ask, Damien refilled my champagne glass as soon as I emptied it.

"That stupid, irresponsible picture of you and I at the London Design Museum was dragged out yet again to prove that I was an unfit mother who'd been taking Class A's while pregnant..."

"I knew there was a reason that I remembered the trial." I raised an eyebrow at him dubiously. "Apart from the fact that it involved you, my dear," he confessed hastily, patting me on the knee then disrupting my rest to place the empty champagne bottle at our feet, before leaning back again, wrapping his free arm casually about my shoulders.

"So the upshot of this all was that after all the evidence was presented, the judge withdrew to his chambers for precisely 5 minutes before coming back and granting sole custody to Tristram, with visiting rights one weekend every two months."

"So he went back, took a shit, then shat on you," Damien observed with his customary wickedly inappropriate grin. "When was this?"

"Six weeks ago," I replied, wishing my voice wouldn't quaver so. Was that all? It seemed more like six years since I'd last seen Ian.

"So you see him in two weeks?" I nodded, my voice choked up. "Coming to England?" I nodded again. "You can stay with me if you like."

Turning my head slightly, I planted a soft kiss on his bristly cheek. "That's very kind of you, Hearsey Darling." I paused for a moment, attempting to collect my thoughts, then gave up and dissolved them in the champagne before nestling back into the crook of his arm. Short, stocky and slightly rounded, Damien was a comfortable man to lie on, soft and yielding after the harsh angular frames of Alex and Jeremy.

As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Damien coughed slightly before venturing. "So how about boys."

"Boys?" I snorted. "The first date I've had in a year just walked out the door with a six foot Danish model turned performance _artiste_."

"Fool!" ejected Damien. I shifted slightly, turning towards him so that I could study his expressions better. "I've never understood what men find the slightest bit attractive in stupid women. I mean beautiful women, yeah - they're tolerable to look at, but they come and they go. But what I want is a woman who can keep up her end of the dialogue without resorting to a dictionary every time the words reach a length of greater than three syllables."

"What's a syllable?" I teased in a babyish and heavily accented voice.

"Shut up, you," he guffawed. "You're exactly the sort of woman I'm talking about. An intelligent and articulate knockout."

"Am I?" My bruised and battered ego blossomed under his praise. He thought I was intelligent? Funny, Damien was the only man in whose conversation I'd ever felt completely lost. "I thought you had no interest whatsoever in me. You were the first man in... _years_ , who actually had the nerve to turn me down."

"That's not what I said. I said I had no interest whatsoever in shagging you simply to get back at Alex Jones. I never said I didn't fancy you." I looked up into his face, questioning, waiting for the cheeky leer that meant it had all been a terrible joke, but his eyes remained open and honest. "Bloody hell, I'm not blind, deaf and dumb. I think, if I recall correctly through the vodka and the coke, the first night I met you, I proposed marriage."

I had to smile at the memory of Damien encouraging Alex and I to top each other at more and more ridiculous intellectual posturing, then sloppily kissing me and proposing marriage, much to the annoyance of Jeremy. "I thought you were joking."

"I was. Alex would have snapped me in half like a twig if I hadn't been. But trust me, I fancied you."

Raising myself up on one elbow, I studied him carefully. Although he wasn't even approaching anything that could even be considered classically handsome, or even pretty, his face still had an odd, mismatched appeal and an undeniable charisma. It was the alcohol talking - no, it was definitely something. His eyes; that was it. The huge, constantly turbulent, quixotic ocean leering out from behind those narrow, deep-set, water-blue eyes. Sometimes he made me hate him, sometimes he intrigued me, but the man had never bored me. "You know what? I've always rather fancied you, too," I finally confessed.

"Shall we have it off, then?" he suggested boldly. It was so off-handed that had I refused, he could have passed off as an attempt at humour, but in that moment I saw right through the bluster and bravado straight to his core. This man believed in himself 110%, but he had been hardened by years and years of people telling him no. The naughty Damien he kept in a box upstairs was simply a method of preserving his pride intact if god forbid he should ever stumble and fall, which apparently he had done more than a few times during his perilous climb to the top.

"Why not?" I finally shrugged, leaning forward to kiss him.

"Why not, indeed," he shrugged. The expression in his eyes was priceless - I'd finally caught him by surprise, made a move he hadn't anticipated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After years of banter and sparring, and a night of flirting, Kate and Damien surprise themselves, and each other, by getting it on.
> 
> Content warning: dub-con, sex with a sleeping partner

Closing my eyes, I moved forward and my mouth touched Damien's, the stubble of his unshaven face brushing gently against my skin. I pecked, I nibbled, I teased, and then finally, when I had him chasing me with his lips and teeth, I opened my mouth and admitted his tongue.

It was a nice kiss, comfortable and friendly, but with none of the breathless, hungry passion that I had become accustomed to with Alex. It left me feeling warm, and happy inside, but it didn't make my skin tingle and my knees shake and all the hairs along the back of my neck stand up the way that first stolen kiss with Alex had. _No, this is a mistake_ , I thought in a blind panic. Leaping into bed with Damien was an utter and complete blunder. I didn't feel that intense, high, fizzy state of sexual intoxication toward him. I'd already lost Alex by indulging a sexual fantasy, I didn't want to risk losing Damien now. His was one of the most challenging, frustrating, infuriating yet rewarding friendships I'd ever known.

Pulling away gently, I stared up at him nervously, but he was grinning that mysterious, impenetrable, superior leer.

"What?" I demanded apprehensively.

"You're getting that look."

"What look?"

" _That_ look. That _oh my god, I've just agreed to sleep with Damien Bloody Hearse, he's going to perform all sorts of bizarre and kinky sex acts upon me, then murder me while I sleep and pickle me and sell my skin to the Tate for half a million pounds_ look."

I burst out laughing. I always liked a man who could make me laugh uncontrollably, especially one who could laugh at himself. "You know it well, then?"

"You'd be surprised. I think some girls actually get off on it," he winked.

The constant jokes, swinging between modest self depreciation and wild, arrogant boasting reassured me rather than disoriented me, setting me at ease. He was just a human being, after all. "Well, I'm not some girls, am I? That's not what I was thinking at all. See, I don't think you're Ed Gein, I think you're some crude little boy who just enjoys swearing and playing with dead things he finds by the side of the road and wants nothing better than for his mummy to find him and give him a good spanking."

Damien snickered wildly, then puffed out his chest in mock indignation. "Just you wait - I'll show you," he threatened, abruptly pushing me off him and standing up, holding out his hand to help me to my feet. "Which is your favourite one in here?" he demanded, gesturing around at the paintings on the walls.

I looked around, then answered, truthfully. "The one of the girl in the window. _The Girl Who Dreamed Of Something Else_ , I think it's called."

"Crap painting, but I like the title," shrugged Damien, but walked over to it, pulling out his cell phone. Clicking a few buttons at random, he waited a moment, then bellowed. "Yeah, Suuchi! There's one here I like. Some naked chick standing in a window. Yeah, Carlos Cerbone is the bloke's name. See what he wants for it. I'll go as high as five grand. Yeah, later. Bye."

Ignoring the shocked expressions all around him, he threaded his arm gently through mine, then escorted me to the stairwell, trotting gently down the staircase and out into the temperate June night. By the end of the block, he was giggling uncontrollably.

"What?" I demanded, stopping short at the corner, but he was too overcome with his mirth to reply. Digging in his deep pockets, I pulled out the cell phone and stared at it. "Damien, this thing's not even on!"

"Precisely. It didn't even need to be on. Just you wait."

"You mean..." I stared at him, breaking into a grin as I realised the practical joke he had just played on the guests at the opening. "Oh, you _are_ wicked!"

"See? See? I told you so!" he exhorted, reaching over and tickling me in the ribs. Shrieking, I twisted around in his grasp and tried to get away from him, but he caught me around the waist and held me fast. I looked up into his face, well, down, actually, as in my heels, I was a good two inches taller than him, and the grin greeting me took my breath away. At that moment I knew, yes, I wanted him. He might not be good looking, but he was so charming that he could no doubt make me laugh all the way into his bed.

Leaning over, I brought my mouth down on his, kissing him, biting, nibbling, pecking, sucking his tongue into my mouth. Oh yes, there it was, the tiny flicker of desire shooting up my spine as he moved his hands lower, slipping his fingers up under the hem of my brief skirt, cupping my buttocks in his palms and squeezing them gently, pulling me towards him, kneading, groping, caressing me like a lump of soft clay.

 

The house was dark as the taxi pulled up, so Damien and I stumbled up the steps to the door, fumbling and groping for a few moments in the unlit vestibule before slithering into the house unseen. I skipped up the stairs towards my apartment, Damien stumbling behind me, trying to keep up. The door was never locked, so I pushed it open and slipped inside, reaching for the lights.

'No," demanded Damien, illuminated for a split second before he reached over and shut the lights off again. "No lights."

"But..." I protested lamely. I liked to look at my lovers, tracing their outlines with my eyes as well as my body.

"No," repeated Damien. In the faint light coming off the street lamp outside the window, I could see him turn around demurely to pull off his T-shirt and his jeans. Was he actually self conscious about his body? It seemed hard to believe, given his blustering self confidence when he was fully clothed. "Sex is not a visual thing, it's a sensual thing. It's not looking, it's feeling. It's tasting, touching, probing, sticky fingers in warm, wet places..." His voice moved across the room, and then the curtain snapped closed across the window, leaving the room completely black.

"Damien..." I called out, worried. I had always had an irrational, phobic fear of the dark. "Where are you?"

I felt the whoosh of air beside me, but without his heavy boots, his step was as silent as a cat's. Suddenly I felt his presence behind me, his breath on the back of my neck a moment before his fingers parted the curtains of my hair and kissed the nape of my neck, his arms snaking around my waist, clutching at the hem of my dress before pulling it up and over my head. His callused fingers were on my belly, moving, searching, one hand exploring upwards, cupping my breast in his palm before rolling my nipple between thumb and forefinger, the other headed down, skirting the tops of my thighs before pushing between them, squeezing my pudendum firmly, rubbing his fingers back and forth as if tracing the texture of my pubic hair beneath the silk.

Panting slightly, I wriggled within his grasp, trying to turn around, wanting to feel his face, but he was as slippery as an eel, releasing his hold on me and disappearing back into the inky blackness. "Where are you?" To be honest, I was slightly frightened, yet undeniably aroused, feeling the deep prehistoric mammalian panic of being blind prey trapped in the night-time world of an accomplished predator. Thinking I heard movement, I moved forward a few steps, but misjudged the dimensions of the room and collided with the arm of my couch. "Shit!"

There was a hand on the back of my neck, roughly pushing me down, until my cheek was against the soft brocade of the cushions. Catching my hands, he pinned and held them behind my back, forcefully pushing his knee between my legs until my thighs parted. Murmuring slightly, I cried out and tried to move, but he held me immobile, powerless in his grasp. For a moment I contemplated fighting back, kicking and pushing him off me, but I had to admit that I was curiously aroused by the fear, the unspoken threat of danger and the loss of control. I exhaled sharply as I felt his hand slide down the back of my panties, pushing them out of the way then gliding his fingers between my legs, massaging my labia until they were slick with moisture, rubbing the viscous liquid between thumb and forefinger to savour the slippery texture.

I could see nothing, but every other sense was alive, the scent of stale incense lingering in the cushions of my couch, the taste of Damien's smoky saliva still fresh in my mouth, the sound of his breath, the rough hairs of his legs against my smooth, soft thighs. Traffic outside, the sound of pedestrians only a few feet outside the walls, shouting as they walked down Avenue B, warm breath on my shoulders, the sensation of the head of his penis slowly but insistently pushing inside me...

A tiny sliver of pain shot up my vagina as he slipped inside, reminding me of Ian's birth, only a few months previous. "Ouch!" I winced softly into the pillow, rubbing my cheek against the soft silk of the embroidery. "Careful, it's been a while."

"I'm sorry," he returned, breaking his silence as he bent over to kiss me between my shoulder-blades. His voice was soft and low, and that touch of a musical northern lilt was oddly reassuring.

"Talk to me; I'm afraid," I begged.

"What are you afraid of, Katie?" He was rubbing his stubbly chin against the skin of my back, tickling me gently, trying not to move his hips as I grew accustomed to the feel of a man inside me again.

"I don't know."

"People are only ever afraid of two things, really. Death and the unknown. Same thing, really. People are only ever afraid of death because it is unknown."

"But this isn't death, Damien. This is the one thing that isn't death. This is sex. This is..." I inhaled sharply as he started to move inside me. "This is procreation, this is birth, this is fucking life."

"Don't get Freudian on me, baby," chuckled Damien, swivelling his hips slightly, trying to get a better footing on the carpet.

"I'm face down with my arse in the air, while you fuck me from behind like an animal... Pardon me, but I think this is a perfectly appropriate time to get Freudian," I countered.

Damien practically exploded in laughter, slumping back down against me, shaking with hysterics. Actually, the tiny, quick back and forth movement of his prick that this produced was exquisite, and my giggling was soon replaced with short, shallow breaths. "Oh, you like that?" he asked, exaggerating the motion, with even more pronounced effects. "You're only afraid of things because you can't see them. Well, close your eyes, turn off your senses and use your heart. Use your intuition, darling..."

A new flurry of sensations fluttered across my body as his hand snaked around my waist and pushed downwards, gently pushing against my clitoris. "Is that using your intuition, then?" I gasped.

"No, that's using my little finger, dear."

I tried to laugh, but I could barely move, trapped in his vice-like grip, crushed against the couch by the weight of his body. My head was spinning, my hips sore, I couldn't take much more of this much longer. Gritting my teeth, I clenched my buttocks together, unintentionally tightening all the muscles of my vagina.

"Oh god, don't do that..." grunted Damien.

"Why not?" I asked, unclenching, then deciding that it felt far more comfortable clenched.

"I'm going to... ugh, oh, Oh!" His body spasmed as he let fly the guttural articulations of a man either in the throes of ecstasy or the agonies of being mauled by lions. God, he was a noisy fuck. For a moment, he lay still against me, then he burst into motion again. "Turn over!"

"What?"

"Turn over!" When I did not comply quickly enough, he pulled out of me, then lifted me bodily and flipped me onto my back. For such a small, unhealthy looking man, he was unbelievably strong. For a moment, I lay catching my breath, feeling the cool breeze raise goose bumps on my sweaty chest. When firm hands pushed my legs apart, I raised my head slightly, peering into the darkness, but I could still see nothing. Suddenly, the unmistakably tickle of stubble brushed against my thigh, and then I felt the warm, moist sensation of lips against my outer labia, and a searching, exploring tongue pushing inside. I gasped, short, shallow pants, but I could not catch my breath. Reaching down, I groped instinctively with my hands until I found his head, my fingers failing to find a grasp in his short, spiky hair. As his thumbs held my labia apart, he fastened his lips around mine, tongue lapping and mouth sucking, almost like a cat drinking milk from inside the lip of a narrow bottle.

"What... what are you doing?"

He remained silent except for the sticky, wet smacking of his tongue, sucking, almost... _drinking_. That was what he was doing. Of all the debaucheries and indulgences I had partaken of over the years, this was a new one on me. Letting go of his hair, I leaned back against the cushions, tangling my fingers in the silk tassels, surrendering myself to the overpowering sensations of pleasure trickling up my spine. Another few seconds, another few heartbeats and my body responded uncontrollably, the chain reaction of orgasm building, releasing and throbbing away.

For about a minute, I lay back against the couch, catching my breath, my head clear and my soul light and happy for the first time in what seemed like months. I wanted to get up and dance about the room, come out into the light and sing. The darkness all around me seemed oppressive and heavy, in stark contrast to my expansive post-coital mood. No, I couldn't stand it another moment - I had to have the lights on and I had to have the lights on now!

Reaching out, I groped blindly for the table lamp at the other end of the couch, found the pull string and yanked it. For a moment, I was blinded, but as my vision cleared, I saw Damien blinking back at me, kneeling between my thighs, his eyes wide and his face shining, like some beautifully wild animal. Panting heavily, the wild, untameable light slowly faded from his eyes as he regained control of himself, finally rubbing his cheek affectionately against my knee and kissing my thigh.

"Come here..." I begged, opening my arms to him.

He smiled, then bent down, giving one last tender lick before letting go of my legs and standing up, padding over and settling down next to me on the floor, his head resting against my breasts. I tried to play with his hair, but it was too short, so I gave up and settled for stroking the short brown tufts as if he was a cat. "During sex, the man surrenders his khundalini to the woman, so you have to reabsorb the essence to make sure you don't lose your spiritual balance," he explained carefully, his eyes glazing over with pleasure as he leaned his head towards my caress. Tracing whirling patterns across his scalp, I studied his hair, noticing a tiny streak of grey above his left ear, lending him an almost distinguished look.

"That's utter pseudo-mystical faux-tantric gobshite," I told him calmly.

"I know," he admitted with a shrug. "But it still tastes pretty cool, you and me all mixed together." I shivered uncontrollably as a chill ran down my spine. "Are you cold? We should get you into bed, then." As he rose to his feet, I noticed the adorably tiny little pot belly hanging over his stocky legs, but he quickly picked his T-shirt off the floor and pulled it over his head, searching around for his jeans.

"You're not going, are you?" I asked hurriedly.

He turned around, a look of surprise dusted across his unruly eyebrows. "The NY Times is actually paying for a hotel room for me, but... Do you want me to stay?"

"Of course I do!"

"Well, the disappointment in your voice is reassuring. I take it that means you're up for another shag tomorrow morning?" Craning his neck, he peered around, looking for the other room. "Where's the bedroom? Through here?" he asked, gesturing with a nod.

"Um-hmm."

Padding back over to the couch, he bent over and scooped me up in his arms, bracing himself momentarily, then carrying me through the door I had just pointed out. Giddy and happy, feeling like I was flying, I flicked the light switch as I passed through.

"Oh, Christ, Kate. A futon?" he grunted in disgust when he saw my sparsely furnished but lavishly decorated Bedouin tent of a room. "What sort of Boho nonsense is this? You're to have a proper bed the next time I come back."

"Insult my furniture, and you won't be invited back," I warned as he bent over to deposit me in my bed. 

He nodded contritely as he shuffled over to the door to turn out the overhead light, then gasped as he turned around to see the galaxy of Christmas Tree lights that surrounded my bed. "That's pretty," he observed, stepping up onto the bed and examining the tiny light bulbs carefully, like a child with a new toy. "I wonder if they make fairy lights that work underwater," he mused aloud, rolling the thing between thumb and forefinger as he looked about the room. Behind the blue eyes, I could see the vast ocean set in motion.

"Damien," I warned softly, feeling the tendrils of sleep wrapping themselves gently about my mind. "No art in bed, dear..."

Chuckling to himself, he abandoned the string of bright blue lights, then burrowed in beside me, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face between my shoulder blades. Warm, safe and secure, I started to doze off, and before long, I was fast asleep.

 

Although we had shifted slightly during the night, when I awoke the next morning, Damien's arms were still wrapped securely around my waist. The dizzy drunkenness of the previous night had passed, leaving me perplexed as to my actions, though not entirely remorseful. It wasn't one of those panic-struck _Oh my god, what the hell was I thinking_? moments; more like _Oh. I seem to have slept with Hearsey_.

In fact, it wasn't regret at all - it had been exhilarating and flattering, and well, very, very erotic - it was just... Well, Damien was simply not someone I had ever thought of in a sexual light at all. I certainly wasn't _in love_ with him. As I looked down at the stocky arms encircling my waist, I felt fondness, even tenderness, definitely respect, and perhaps even a little buzz of libido.

But love? No, not love.

Damien stirred slightly, sighing as if moving upwards through layers of filmy sleep, then shifted his hips, thrusting them forward slightly towards me, then settling back down into a light slumber. Morning Glory indeed, I thought to myself as I felt the stiff intrusion of his already alert sex against my thigh. Well, how deep of a sleeper _was_ he? Alex had always claimed that Damien could sleep through phones, doorbells and just about every alarm known to mankind. Shifting slightly, I was able to manipulate his penis between my buttocks, rubbing back and forth gently. His breathing quickened for a moment, then he snorted abruptly and fell back into the usual gentle pattern. A wicked idea seized my mind... no, there was no way I could get away with it. Well, why not try?

Shifting again, I held my breath, extending my arm slowly and smoothly, then reached behind me and took his shaft in my hands, tucking it quickly between my thighs. A snore and the edge of a grunt, but consciousness did not return. Moving my hips slightly, I tried to slip back and forth, but I had become unfortunately dry and I caught his skin painfully. He snorted again, shook his head fitfully, like a catnapping puppy, and for a nerve-wracking moment I thought he was going to roll over, but he gripped me tighter about the waist and fell back to his doze. Well, bloody hell! Why not take this all the way, then?

Closing my eyes, I screwed up my face and tried to think the dirtiest thoughts imaginable, trying to coax a few beads of moisture from my uncooperative body. Being onstage, catching the eye of one of the teenage pretty boys in the front row. Mmm, yeah, that was nice. Trooping backstage and finding the sullen-lipped youngster by the stage door, his eyes shining with admiration and teenage lust. Yeah, this is getting good. Out in the alley behind the Mercury Lounge, groping and pawing the boy... oh no, fuck, he's probably only seventeen and out past curfew on a school night...

Abandoning that fantasy, I shifted my mental tableau. Arthur, the cute bartender at the Lakeside Lounge, coming out from behind the bar, bolting the front door and moving back towards the bathroom, unbuckling his belt, his mouth twisted in that cocky grin, shedding his shirt and flexing his pectoral muscles for my admiring audience... No, that was no good. Arthur the cute bartender had probably already bedded every girl in the East Village.

Damien's breaths had grown regular, and his arms had somewhat relaxed their death grip on my waist - he was definitely back into deep sleep now. Suddenly the image of the previous night leapt into my head unbidden - Damien's wild, beautiful, untameable grin, framed between my thighs. But the light was not dim and comfortable like my living room - it was bright and sterile, like an operating theatre - or a delivery room. Suddenly my imaginary Damien leapt up, his wicked leer a triumphant grin as he hold aloft a squalling package. _It's a boy, Mrs. Hearse, it's a boy_! announced a matronly voice in the background. The proud father beamed ecstatically, holding our offspring towards me. Though I was half afraid it would have a pig face or a sheep's body, it was a perfectly normal infant, except for the aggressive boxer's pug nose and a dusting of stubble across its babyish features...

 _Bloody hell_! I thought to myself. Where on earth did that sexual fantasy come from? That wasn't my fantasy, that was the saccharine daydream of some dewy-eyed Modern Romance reader! But whoever's fantasy it had been, it had done the trick, and sticky streams of moisture were now practically dripping down my thighs. 

With a wicked grin, I lifted my leg slightly, wrapped my calf around Damien's, then slowly, torturously slowly and gently, let myself slide onto his penis. A groan, a snort and a muted snuffle all passed his lips in quick succession, but still, Damien slumbered on. Still not quite believing I'd got this far, I started to have a little fun with him, moving cautiously at first, then growing careless, using him as my own personal toy, barely caring if he woke up. It was almost pure masturbation, using him merely as a tool for two or three shallow, lazy morning orgasms in a row. Shifting, rolling his hips, and grunting, Damien was definitely in the process of floating back towards consciousness now. Dammit, if this was going to be a race, I was going to win, I reflected, jiggling my hips forward and back at a frenzied speed, clenching my muscles to squeeze a climax from him.

Moaning, grunting, and then crying out, the breaking orgasm finally woke Damien from his trancelike sleep as he clutched at me, sinking his teeth into my shoulder.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" he exclaimed, unwrapping his arms from about my waist, planting a kiss on the back of my neck and then rubbing his eyes.

I giggled softly, turning around to gaze into his bleary eyes. "I have stolen your khundalini back," I teased softly before kissing him on the tip of the nose.

"That you have. Jesus Fucking Christ!" He shook his head, briskly, like a puppy shaking a flea from its ear, then peered at me curiously. "I was having the most demented dream, as well. I dreamed I was giving birth... Through my prick! And it just felt really, really good, like I was being fucked from the inside, and all I could think was ‘ _bloody hell, what the hell are these women complaining about?_ '"

I burst out laughing, covering my mouth with my hand, then rapidly added. "I think I've seen that movie. Didn't they bring the baby in, and it had a pig's head or something?"

"It would serve me bloody well right!" guffawed Damien, then paused. "Shite, what time is it?"

Raising my head, I glanced over his shoulder at the clock. "About 10 a.m."

"Oh, thank god. I have an interview with the NY Times at 2 p.m., don't let me forget. I'm surprised Dale hasn't been ringing my cell phone off the hook to remind me."

"The battery's dead," I reminded him.

"You mean, no one knows where I am, and no one can contact me?" I nodded, unable to work out if that was panic or excitement in his voice. "Well, bloody hell, that's an unusual feeling," he sighed, leaning back, folding his arms behind his head contentedly. "Rather nice, actually."

I sat up, stretching my arms and arching my back in a yawn, then turned back to him. "Cup of tea?" I offered, suddenly feeling the urge to be the polite hostess.

"Mmm, yeah, where's the phone? I'll ring for some," replied Damien, without batting an eyelid.

"Don't be ridiculous," I laughed, bending over to kiss him before climbing out of bed. Padding out to the kitchenette, only to discover that the tin on top of the fridge, where I normally kept my tea contained nothing but two wilted bags of Tension Tamer. "Bloody hell, I'm out. Let's go downstairs." Damien grimaced at me, disheartened. "Well, come on. If you rang for takeaway, you'd still have to go downstairs to answer the door."

Damien grumbled, then climbed out of bed, picking through the clothes draped over the back of my chair as I dug through my closet for something to throw on. Where the hell was my black silk kimono robe that I'd bought from the fancy knickers catalogue months and months ago in the vague hope that someday there would be someone I would want to impress enough to wear it. Suddenly, I stopped myself. No, calm down, who are you trying to impress? Donning a short, plain black night-dress, I emerged from the closet to discover Damien standing, batting his eyelids at me from my black silk kimono.

"Ah, so, grasshopper," he intoned in an absolutely terrible fake Chinese accent, bowing to me, then taking a kung fu fighter's stance.

For a moment, I stared back at him, then grinned widely, dropping down into a martial arts stance, waving around my hands menacingly. "You have offended my honour!" I grunted, moving my lips out of time with my words in imitation of a poorly overdubbed translation. "Now you must die!"

Quoting various terrible martial arts movies, we circled each other as best we could for a few minutes, Damien climbing over the futon while I stayed near the door. As soon as Damien lunged forward, aiming a careless kick past my ear, I seized him around the ankle and toppled him easily, surprised but unharmed, to the mattress.

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Damien, looking rather foolish, sprawled in a heap. "Oh, no fair, mate - you didn't tell me you actually _knew_ kung fu! Ooh, now you're in for it!"

Giggling madly, I made a run for it, dashing out the door and down the stairs before he could even climb off the futon. Flying down the hall, I found the door to Maddie's apartment and slipped inside, pausing to listen for footsteps upstairs. Hmmm, sounded like he was heading upstairs rather than downstairs - perhaps I was safe. I'd just make a cup of tea and take it up to him as a peace offering, I reflected, padding across the kitchen and putting the kettle on the stove.

Maddie had done the most extensive renovations of all of us, annoyed and constrained by the tiny boxlike kitchens the apartments had originally offered. Sacrificing her second bedroom, she had expanded her kitchen into a lovely, gracious long room that looked out a pair of French doors into the tangled garden that we'd all sworn we were going to do something with once we got the chance. At the time, we had all told her she was completely mad, but now, the room, with the slanting sunlight of northern exposure was the envy of us all, and we found every excuse we could to hang out there. Maddie never seemed to mind, in fact she almost seemed to encourage it by making sure there was always a pot of coffee brewing, or a saucepan of stew simmering on the stove, and a copious supply of magazines and newspapers on the end of the table.

Standing with my back to the door, staring out into the blooming wildflowers (they might have only been weeds, but their blossoms could put the Bronx Botanical Gardens to shame) and hugging myself, I practically jumped when I heard the door open. Whirling around, I turned to confront Maddie, humming happily to herself, still dressed in the party dress of the previous evening. _Casual dating, indeed_.

"Oh my god, you scared me."

"Well, I usually don't knock when I come into my own apartment," she shrugged.

"I just came down cause I ran out of tea upstairs," I explained hurriedly.

"Oh be a dear and put a pot on, I’d like a cup myself," she directed, then hung her pocketbook from a peg on the wall. "My god, Kate, you are never going to believe what happened this morning! Carl sold one of his paintings!"

"Did he?" I giggled, trying to act surprised.

"For $7,000! Can you believe it? That naughty one of me standing in the window with no shirt on! Someone called his agent at 8 a.m. offering $6,000. The agent tried to check it the gallery owner, cause it had a catalogue price of $600, and while he was on hold, the bloke changed his bit to $7,000! At that point, he just said ‘Fine, thank you very much, I'll take it!' Can you imagine? $7,000 for a painting! Perhaps Carl is right - perhaps he does have a future in this. He was talking this morning about quitting his job and painting full time!"

"I'm very happy for him," I hedged. "But perhaps that's a little hasty. I mean, you know how the business is..."

"Well, that's what I told him."

We chattered on excitedly for a few minutes, so caught up in the excitement of Carlos' good fortune that I quite forgot to tell her that Damien was still upstairs waiting for his tea. Then again, I should have known better than to take my eyes off him for a minute.

"Wait, what's that noise in the hall?" she ventured. "Did Beth come home last night?"

"I don't know..."

Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and the door flew inward. Brandishing a large axe that one of the builders must have left in the attic, Damien leapt into the centre of the room, his eyes bulging and all the veins popping out of his forehead like a perfect madman. "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"

I burst out laughing, bending over double and creasing up with mirth. Maddie shrieked, dropped her empty teacup and leaped back about three feet before fainting dead away.

Damien looked about foolishly, then put the axe down, wandering over to Maddie and crouching down beside her. "Oh shite... I'm sorry. Damn. Do you have any smelling salts?"

"Doubt it," I sighed, shaking my head, then having a brainstorm. "Onions. She's got to have onions in her fridge." Sure enough, there they were, so I took one, sliced it in half and handed it to Damien. "Oh damn, there goes the kettle. You do it, please, Hearsey Darling..."

Holding the onion suspiciously, as if it were a an alien object, Damien waved it back and forth underneath her nose until she recovered, batting her eyelids slowly, then opened her eyes. Seeing Damien's face hovering so close to her, she promptly let out another wail, skittering backwards away from him on all fours, like a spider.

Damien seemed to take it in his stride, shrugging as he stood up. "I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to be a pop star if this is what it feels like to have girls screaming at you all the time."

"Kate, who the hell is this madman!" demanded Maddie as I helped her to her feet.

"Sorry, I don't think you were ever properly introduced. Maddie, this is Damien Hearse. Damien, this is Maddie Cerbone, our drummer. Carlos - the painter - is her husband."

"Oh my god." Maddie covered her mouth with one hand as she nervously shook his hand with the other. I could see it all in her face - this is the man we've been trying so hard to impress, and so far all we've done is slapped him, screamed in his face and run away. "I'm so terribly sorry, Mr. Hearse..." she ventured.

"Fuck, Damien, give me a hand with this tea," I swore, spilling scalding hot water all over my hands as I tried to pour the water.

"Yes, dear..." he teased, but he was just as useless at the operation.

"See? If we'd ordered out, none of this would have happened," he informed me, leaning over to kiss me softly.

"Oh, sorry, Kate - did I forget to warn you? The tea kettle is broken. You have to heat the water in the coffeemaker."

Damien smirked triumphantly. "Oh shut up. Now, go on. Tell me about how the ritual of making tea is all just an elaborate metaphor for death," I shot back.

"Everything's an elaborate metaphor for death," he muttered defensively, seizing the tea kettle back. "I mean, it's just a teakettle, an ordinary, household appliance, until I start to beat you in the head with it..." he raised it menacingly, causing me to shriek loudly before bursting into another gale of giggles. "...and then it's a frightening object; an elaborate metaphor for death, isn't it?"

Maddie looked back and forth between the two of us, obviously wondering if she should call the police yet. "You're both mad," she finally sighed before disappearing back into her bedroom.

"Screw the tea," sighed Damien impatiently. "Come on, get dressed, I'll take you out for breakfast."

We sat for an hour, misbehaving in a greasy spoon on Avenue A, drinking endless cups of strong coffee and just talking, mentally wandering wherever the caffeine took us, down endless sideroads, both philosophical and ephemeral, by turns profound and profane. Finally he stared at his watch and sighed.

"I really do have to go. Promise that you will actually call me this time! I've asked you so many times, and you never have!"

I nodded obediently, then stared down into the gritty mud at the bottom of my coffee cup, wondering if I could simply ignore the doubt raging in the pit of my stomach. No, the subject had to be broached before the situation could proceed. "Damien..." He looked up, his narrow eyes squinting against the sun. "Look, I hope you don't... erm… shit." I paused, trying to think of a way to word it that didn't sound completely callous and ungrateful. "Damien, I hope you understand. I've had a fabulous time with you, but I need you to know, I'm _really_ not ready for another relationship just yet..."

He smiled wryly. "I was wondering when this conversation was going to happen."

"No, no," I protested. "It's not you, it's not... it's just..."

"I completely understand," he cut me off, spreading his hands across the table palms down in a gesture of capitulation, then reached up and touched my face tenderly. "I’m not going to push you into anything you don’t want. But, look, the offer is still open to stay with me when you go to see your son."

"Thank you. I will."

"I do have to go, though. Look, take care of yourself, Katie." As he stood up, he bent over and brushed the top of my head with his lips, then stalked from the restaurant, carefully twisting his face back into the moody scowl that he used for tormenting journalists.

As soon as he was out of sight, the fear kicked in. He was angry, he was hurt, he felt used and manipulated. It was bad and wrong of me to have ruined a perfectly good friendship over one night of sex to restore my battered ego. Although I had felt temporarily marvellous, felt like the most beautiful, sexy and intelligent woman on earth, the guilt was not worth it. With a heavy heart, I paid the waitress and headed back morosely to Avenue B.

Without bothering to even go upstairs, I padded straight to Maddie's kitchen and threw myself down on one of the benches, picking up a copy of Melody Maker, flipping through the pages idly, without really reading them.

"Oh god, Kate," sighed Maddie, bringing over yet another cup of coffee and a bowl of sugar. "What have you got yourself into this time? Are you sleeping with that man?"

"Well... I slept with him," I shrugged. "No idea if I'll do it again." I paused to consider if it was something I wanted to be ongoing.

"He's not exactly your usual type," Maddie observed diplomatically.

"I know..." I wasn't quite sure if she was referring to his lack of overt good looks or the fact that she now thought he was completely insane. "I had a lot of fun with him. And I honestly could do with a bit more fun in my life right now."

"Oh, well I'm glad to hear that." She smiled, pleased. "You could really do with a new love affair."

"Well, I don't know that I'd call it a _love_ affair," I protested. "I don't think that love has anything to do with it. He's clever, and he's funny, and he's really good in bed, and he's just really, really... well, we have _fun_."

"Oh god. You're falling in love. I can see it written all over your face, the way you smile when you talk about him."

"I'm not in love," I protested with a deep sigh. "If I were in love, everything would be fine. But I'm just not."

"Fine, Kate, if you want to believe that," warned Maddie with a knowing smile. "But I've seen that look before."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate flies to England to visit the son she's lost custody of... and spends a confusing weekend with Damien.
> 
> Content Warning: dub-con

I was a complete and total wreck as I stepped off the aeroplane, buzzing through customs in a daze. It wasn't until I got out to the arrival gate and saw Damien's familiar grin as he waved excitedly to get my attention that it finally sank in that I was back in England, and I was going to see my son. 

"How was your flight?" he burbled cheerfully, taking my suitcase from me. I leaned forward to kiss him, but he turned his head, planting a chaste peck on my cheek.

"It was an aeroplane," I shrugged, trying not to feel slighted. "I've haven't been on one in a while; I nearly forgot how much I liked them."

He smiled indulgently, but every time I tried to walk nearer to him, he shied away slightly. "Right. We need to find the taxi rank..."

"Taxi?" I asked, surprised. "I can't afford a taxi all the way back to London from out here. Why didn't you bring a car?"

"I don't drive," Damien shrugged nonchalantly.

"Don't drive, or can't drive?"

"Why should I bother learning to drive when there's a taxi approximately every fifty yards in London?"

"Look, I'm going to hire a car," I protested, changing direction and heading towards the Budget Car Hire booth by the door, forcing Damien to break into a trot to keep up with me.

"Suit yourself." It confused me why he was being so cold, but then I caught sight of my bedraggled reflection in the mirrors behind the car hire counter. The tastefully cut dress I had selected as appropriate for my maternal status seemed completely incongruous with my tangled hair and wild, mascara-smeared eyes.

I provided passport, drivers license, credit card and six other forms of ID, and was finally rewarded with the keys to an eye-wateringly expensive sub-compact car. Perhaps Damien was right, and the taxi might have been cheaper, but if I had to be shuttling back and forth across London in search of my son, I didn't want to have to rely on taxis.

Damien smiled as we crossed the access road and headed for the parking garage, his unreadable eyes shielded by his sunglasses. What did it matter? I had no one to impress; Tristram thought I was an evil bitch and Damien was quite obviously no longer interested in pursuing a sexual relationship. "Oh, here  it is..." I chirped, locating the parking spot and finding a pale blue Mini Cooper. "This is cute. So much better than a taxi."

"It is nice," agreed Damien, stroking the leather upholstery with the same casual sensuality with which he'd only recently touched me.

"Where am I dropping you?" I offered, as I checked the controls of the car, trying to distinguish windscreen wipers from indicators. 

"I don't know. Where are you headed?"

I sighed deeply. His noncommittal responses were almost as infuriating as his refusal to kiss me in public. Then again, what was I complaining about? I hated kissing in public, it seemed too much like territorial marking. "Well, I'm going to..." I dug in the depths of my handbag for the sheet of paper on which my lawyer had written the directions. "Holland Park. Is that anywhere near you?"

"No, that's nowhere near me."

"Do you want me to take you home first?" I didn't quite fancy a long detour to drop him at his house, but considering he'd met me at the airport, it seemed churlish to refuse.

"No, it's fine. I'll stroll over to Notting Hill. I quite fancy perusing some of the galleries there, maybe take in some of the junk shops. Great source of inspiration, other epochs' rubbish."

"Suit yourself," I shrugged back, deciding that two could play this game, and threw the car into gear.

Straight out the Westway we headed, out into comfortably posh suburbs, down a side street in Holland Park, past huge, stately brick Victorians surrounded by trees. As we headed down past the park towards Kensington, I started to worry. Was this where Tristram lived? Bloody hell, I knew that affluence lurked behind his happy-go-lucky hippie exterior, but it still surprised me to see exactly how wealthy he was. Then again, I should have known from the high powered solicitor that he had engaged in the court battle between us. As I pulled into the driveway of a mansion the size of a city block, the bottom of my stomach felt like it was dropping to the vicinity of somewhere around my knees. It hadn’t even been divided up into a block of flats, I could see from the doorbell. The whole thing was just a solid brick block of Thornaby-Gores.

"Jesus fucking Christ, are they posh enough?" I muttered under my breath. 

"I thought that was your scene."

I shook my head disparragingly. "This kind of wealth... I dunno. I find it faintly obscene."

Damien eyed me strangely. "That's funny, I distinctly remember you and Alex holding forth for at least an hour, in defense of elitism, in a certain private club a few years ago?"

I drew in a sharp breath, wanting to bite my tongue, but at the same time, slightly irked by his tone of voice. "I could make some spirited defense that I meant intellectual elitism rather than financial - or I could shrug and say that I was joking, I was taking the piss and trying to wind up your friend from the Guardian. The truth is, there is nothing like running into the blunt end of the class divide to see exactly uneven the playing field really is."

"How so?"

I tried to stare straight ahead, but all I could see was the house, the huge floor to ceiling windows on the piano nobile, edged with heavy brocade curtains that even managed to drape in an expensive looking way. "In the family court system, I met a lot of women, and especially a lot of single mothers. I mean, even with everything that happened, with Tristram and his fucking family and his expensive lawyers swooping in, it's like..." I took a deep breath, trying to articulate things I didn't even have the language to describe. "I heard some stories, from the other women, that made me just weep, at the fucking injustice of it all. Like, how badly the dice get loaded against some people, practically from birth. And how even me, you know, I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm fairly middle class these days - I have a record contact, I own my own flat , MVC even provide us health insurance - but I discovered that _still_ , there is one level of justice for people like me, and another, better level of justice for people like the Thornaby-Gores. So, no. I don't know that I can defend elitism any more." My voice gave out as I tried to pull myself together to face the people who had stolen my son.

"Are you going to be alright?" Damien asked, reaching over and touching my arm sympathetically.

"I'm fine!" I insisted, refusing to allow him to see me in a weak moment.

"What time should I come back and look for you?" he offered.

"You won't get bored and just take a cab home?" I stuttered, looking around awkwardly.

"You don't know where I live," he pointed out.

I stared at the paper in my hands, which explicitly said that Ian was to be back in the custody of his guardian by 7pm each night. "Seven?" I ventured. "Is that alright?' God knows Damien had better things to do with his time than run around after me.

"Perfect." He delivered a swift kiss to my cheek before climbing out of the car.

"See you then," I shrugged, wrapping what little shreds of self confidence I could summon around me like a suit of armour as I walked to the door, though I noticed Damien stood at the edge the driveway, watching carefully to make sure that I got inside the house. Standing, staring up at the imposing oak door, I leaned forward and timidly knocked the enormous brass knocker.

After a few moments, the door swung inward, and a thin, tired-looking girl with dishwater blond hair stared out at me. "Oh, Ms. Gordon, please come in."

"Is Tristram here?" I asked carefully, trying not to gawk as I looked about the equally imposing foyer. Good lord, was that an actual suit of armour?

"No, he's not," stuttered the girl. "He didn't want to be here when you..." Suddenly she cut herself off, blushing slightly, as if ashamed of letting slip something she shouldn't have. So Tristram didn't even want to see me? That was cold. "Actually, Tristram doesn't actually live here," she added hastily. "This is his mother's house. Dame Thornaby-Gore." A Dame. I swallowed nervously, trying to remember if Dame was a hereditary title or a life peerage. What the fuck had Ian been born into? "The solicitor said it would be better not to meet you where Ian actually resides..." she burbled on, then suddenly stopped herself again. God, if Tristram didn't want me finding anything out, he had better invest in some higher calibre domestic help. Or did he purposely instruct her to let the information slip? No, even Tristram could not be that underhanded. Then again, remembering the juvenile tricks to which he stooped during the trial, I wasn't sure I could put anything past him.

Why the hell would Tristram's lawyer instruct him not to let me visit Ian at his home? Did they not want me to know _where_ he lived? Were they afraid that I would attempt to abduct Ian if I knew where he was? Why was Tristram so intent on not just treating me like a criminal, but purposely letting me know that he was treating me so? _That fucking bastard..._  

But as I turned the corner and followed the loose-lipped girl into another room, suddenly I caught sight of a halo of white-blond hair. Letting out a shriek of pure, unadulterated joy, I dashed into the impromptu nursery and swept my child up in my arms. For a moment, he froze, terrified, but then, with that uncanny sense of smell or touch or whatever it is that makes babies recognise their mothers, he settled down, extending his tiny arms and clinging to my neck. At that moment, nothing else in the world mattered - not the petty arguments with his father, not the endless lawsuits and court cases, nothing but the miniature blue versions of my own eyes that stared back at me in perfect and unconditional adoration.

"How could I have forgotten how beautiful you are?' I sighed, spinning him around in a dizzy mad dance until he shrieked and burbled in his infant echolalia.

"He is a lovely child," agreed a voice behind me, and I practically jumped, turning to see an older woman standing beside the girl who had let me into the house. She was tall, imposingly tall, with an ageless sort of patrician good looks that it was almost impossible to tell if they were the result of genetics or a very good plastic surgeon. Her hair had clearly once been butter blonde, but it was streaked with silver streaks that made her chic shoulder length bob look platinum. She didn't just look beautiful, she looked expensive. "Jennifer, why don't you go and check on the laundry in the basement?"

"Yes, ma'am," she tittered shyly and ran off like a terrified mouse.

"He reminds me quite a bit of Tristram at the same age," she observed in an almost Shakespearean tone. This had to be Dame Thornaby-Gore. "Those same long, elegant fingers, the same inquisitive face. Though I think he actually takes more after you, now that I see you." She paused for effect, fingering a gold cigarette case as if dying for a smoke, though I was thankful that she abstained, for Ian's sake. "Isn't it strange, to see your own features mixed with those of a man that you loathe?"

"I don't loathe Tristram," I insisted doggedly, confused and perplexed by why she would say this about her own son. This conversation was rapidly taking a turn for the surreal, but with Tristram, I’d learned to expect just about anything.

"Oh, come _on_. You'd have every right to."

"I loathe what he's done. I loathe what he's put me, put both Ian and I through. But loathing him would imply that I still care enough about him to hate him, which I don't," I shrugged, almost convincing myself.

"Good answer," purred Dame Thornaby-Gore, settling back into an overstuffed Edwardian sofa. " _Very_ good. You've got spunk, I'll give you that. I can see what Tris saw in you."

"I am not here to face an inquisition, thank you very much," I snarled. "I am here to see my son, so can we please skip whatever it is you feel that you have a right to lecture me on?"

Dame Thornaby-Gore simply laughed, throwing back her head and letting out a rich, throaty roar. "I have no lecture. I just wanted to meet you, that's all."

Fighting the urge to snap _Well, you've met me, now get out_ , I simply glared at her defensively, my hackles up and my teeth bared with a ferocity a mother lioness would have been proud of.

"You might not believe this, but you remind me a lot of myself," she finally confessed after studying me for quite some time.

I rolled my eyes, snorting dismissively to show my contempt for this cliché, but did not respond.

"Don't listen to me then," Dame Thornaby-Gore shrugged with a wry smile. "Lord knows, I never listened to anyone. When I married Tris’s father. And when I divorced him." She paused, and I could practically feel her desire for a cigarette as she stroked the case. 

Now this was news to me. The way that Tristram practically idolised family and fidelity, I’d never guessed he was a child of divorce himself. Or was that the reason for it? 

"Tris is doing what he believes is right, you know. He never had a chance to properly know his father, as I'm sure he told you and the judge and the press and anyone who would listen a hundred times.”

Actually, he hadn’t told me – or the judge, or anyone else. Tristram had painted himself as a paragon of virtue, from a loving and stable background, quite the reverse of my drug-induced profligacy.

“But I'm going to tell you a secret. Tris was never given a _chance_ to know his father, because I was too bitter and too angry and wanted to turn Tris against him, in order punish his father for whatever it was I was angry for... and do you realise it's been so long - 25 years, or whatever - that I've actually forgotten at this point what it was I wanted to punish him for. The girls, the affairs, it all stops mattering after a decade or two."

I stared at her in outright disbelief. What she was telling me was the exact opposite of every haughty moral lesson Tristram had ever told me about his perfect childhood. Looking around the room desperately, my eyes slid across the luxurious furniture, the mirror above the fireplace, the oil paintings on the wall, anything that wasn't Dame Thornaby-Gore's face, as if I could avoid the meaning of what she was telling me by avoiding her eyes. "So what are you trying to say? Tristram is trying to punish me in order to re-enact some psycho-drama he's in denial of ever having happened?"

"Tris is most definitely trying to punish someone, and I don't think he's even aware who or why."

"Why the hell are you telling _me_ this?" I demanded, suddenly growing very angry. Sick of these strange games that the entire Thornaby-Gore family seemed so fond of playing, I wondered how the hell I ever got mixed up in them. Clutching Ian close, I wished that I could be as irresponsible as Tristram had accused me of being, take him and simply run as far and as fast as I could.

"Because the innocent bystander who is getting most hurt by it is my grandson there."

I paused, looking down at Ian, currently oblivious to the kitchen sink drama being enacted around him, sucking thoughtfully on a strand of my hair. "I don't understand. I'm not even sure I believe you, and I don't even want to get involved," I stuttered, stumbling awkwardly over eggshell ground.

"Darling, you're _already_ involved," she chuckled, pulling a cigarette out of the case and lifting it to her lips out of habit, then stopping and putting it away as she noticed my sharp glare.

If there was one thing I'd learned from my interactions with the Thornaby-Gores, it was not to trust their motivations in anything. "I mean, why are you selling Tristram out to the woman who's supposedly his worst enemy?" I drawled sarcastically.

"Selling him out?" Dame Thornaby-Gore cackled softly. "You are not his worst enemy - he is his _own_ worst enemy. And I want him not to make an enemy of his own son by demonising his mother."

"Aren't you supposed to be closing ranks and protecting your son or something?" I retorted, perhaps a bit too sarcastically.

Dame Thornaby-Gore stood up, stretching lazily. "One thing it may take you a long time to learn, is that though, as a mother, one may love one's children to distraction, it is quite a different thing to _accept_ one's child's faults, than it is to _ignore_ one's child's faults. Now where has Jennifer got to? Pardon me, I must go and find her. It's time for the child to have his lunch." With a flounce of her silk robes and a wave of her cigarette she breezed from the room.

I stared after her retreating back, just trying to process the new information, but it wasn't until the door on the far side of the hallway slammed shut that I realised that she had left me completely alone with Ian. The terms of the custody agreement had specifically dictated that I never be left alone with Ian, as Jennifer, if that was what the girl was called, had been so kind to remind me. And now she was almost certainly _deliberately_ leaving the two of us alone, within easy reach of the front door... Was this some kind of a test? Or was this her way of apologising for what we both perceived as her son's unreasonable behaviour?

Not quite sure what to make of the entire encounter, I retreated to the sofa and sat down, bouncing Ian on my lap, memorising the changes in his face that only a few short weeks had made. How the hell was I supposed to cram two months worth of motherhood into less than 48 hours? It just didn't seem possible. Holding him close, I didn't even want to think about the eventuality of having to let him go again.

 

 

When I finally emerged from the depths of the house, dazed and emotionally drained, I found Damien perched on the bonnet of my car, peering inquisitively into the eyepiece of what looked like some odd Victorian piece of scientific equipment.

"You alright?" he chirped as I appeared, packing the junk into a wooden box and tucking it into the back seat as I unlocked the car.

"Yes," I lied.

Damien stared at me without blinking for a few moments as I started the engine. "You're lying."

"Alright, I feel just a little out of sorts. Do you really blame me?" I snapped, glancing resentfully at him, though I tried my best to keep my eyes on the road, away from his inquisitive gaze.

"No, that's completely understandable," he conceded. "A whole day with an ex lover and I expect I'd be a bit of a wreck, as well."

_How can men be so clueless_? I fumed to myself. I had just seen my child - my baby, a tiny living creature that had been living inside me for long that every motion, every heartbeat had been as familiar as my own. I would only get to be with him for two days, 48 short hours, and then I was not going to see him again for another two months. How could a mother bear it? It was all I could do to keep myself from breaking down and crying in the car. For a moment, I considered shouting, screaming and pounding Damien with my fists, but I stopped myself. It was not him that I was angry at, it was not fair to take it all out on him. "Tristram wasn't even there," was the only explanation that meekly passed my lips. "He didn't want to upset himself by having to see me."

Damien cocked an unruly eyebrow at me. "Really? Was your break-up that bad? I'm sorry, duck."

Now why was he asking a question like that, probing about my ex-lovers like a gossiping girlfriend? Did the mass of contradictions that comprised Damien's personality extend to his personal life, as well? He had already made it plain that he wasn't interested in continuing our romantic relationship. _Sexual relationship_ , I corrected myself. There had been nothing romantic about the few hours of friendly bickering and frenzied coupling. "We never really had a break-up per se. It was more like we could just never get the thing off the ground," I explained in guarded tones.

"Why not? It seems as if you two had an awful lot in common. I would have thought you'd have been good together." AsI stopped at a traffic light, I merely stared at him, completely dumbfounded. Damien Hearse, agony aunt. Who would have known? "Or are the rumours about him being a BNP-supporting reactionary true," he continued. "He already had you pregnant, so he tried to get you barefoot and back in the kitchen?"

I sighed pointedly, too caught up in the emotion to stop and think about why he would be asking this. "He was just so... moralistic!" I complained, feeling all the frustration and anger bursting to the surface like a volcano that had wanted to erupt for so long that once I started I could no longer control it. "These fucking men - all they ever want to do is control you! It's always the jealousy thing, isn't it?"

"Is it?" prompted Damien. He was obviously pumping me for information, but caught in mid-rant, I was oblivious. "I wouldn't really know. I seem to have been born without the jealousy gene or something. Never really understood it."

"Sexual jealousy? Come on, it is such a bloke thing. It's some need to prove their fucking masculine machismo or something, puffing themselves up to prove that they're the biggest lion in the pride, the most virile stallion in the stable. It's just so fucking barbarous. So... animalistic." As the light changed, I gunned the engine and switched gears swiftly, abruptly cutting off a taxi that had been trying to nose in a little close to me.

"Well, it _is_ animalistic," pointed out Damien. "Never forget, that despite a few thousand years of civilisation, you're still talking about _millions_ of years of mankind being an animal. It's just evolution, really, sexual jealousy is. Males want to make sure that their offspring is really theirs. They don't want to put the effort and investment into perpetuating a gene pool that is not their own."

_Ouch_. Were you aiming, Mr. Hearse? Underneath the avant guarde exterior, he was as conservative and Victorian as the rest of them, wasn't he? Glancing over at him carefully, I tried to ascertain whether that had been a pointed dig or an unintentional error, but Damien's face was unreadable. "It's not bloody evolution," I snarled. "It's just social convention. How do you explain adoption then, if it's entirely biological?"

"It's a very different situation," shrugged Damien.

"How?" I demanded.

"It's usually women who instigate the adoption process. Men try to go for artificial insemination, or surrogate motherhood first, to preserve their genetic investment." The edge of his mouth was curling up in a slight smile. Was he baiting me?

"Bollocks! That is the most sexist piece of crap I have ever heard!" I exploded, swallowing the bait hook line and sinker. "For a start, it's not even statistically true! And you just contradicted yourself by bringing up the whole genetic investment theory. You just said that sexual jealousy is a way of men preserving their genetic investment by assuring that the offspring they raise will be their own. But this whole fucking genetic investment bollocks is just a quote unquote _scientific_ apology for the good old double standard! What about the genetic investment they waste and then don't follow up on when the men screw around sewing their wild oats, eh?"

Damien shrugged, clearly enjoying himself. "But that is the whole point of the game, you see. Try to get some other hunter to take care of the gatherer you just impregnated. You said that once about Alex. That's why most men are so suspicious. Cause they'd do it in a second, themselves." His grin was far too wide for him to be serious any more, but I refused to let go of the subject until I'd finally beaten him at something. "Pull down this street, it's the big warehouse at the end. You can park in the garage round the back."

"It's social convention," I repeated stubbornly. "And even if it is evolution, well, how do you think effective forms of birth control like The Pill are going to affect evolution? People can pinpoint with almost clinical accuracy when and with whom they procreate. All those biological 'reasons'... simply no longer exist. But men are still irrationally sexually jealous." I paused to catch my breath, wondering why my heart was pounding in my chest. It was one thing to debate purely intellectual flights of fancy with colourful rhetoric, but Damien had a way of making the purely personal universal, and then applying the universal back to your own personal life in a way that was unsettling and disconcerting. "And what _are_ you smirking at?"

"And how effective was The Pill for you?" His disarming grin took the edge off the statement, but it still hurt.

_Bastard_. "It wasn't the fucking birth control. I took too many drugs and forgot to take it for a weekend. It's 99% effective, which puts me in that tiny 1% minority."

"In so many more ways than one," observed Damien.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

Smiling mysteriously, he met my angry glare with those calm, impenetrable blue pools. It was his most frustrating habit - letting you talk yourself into your own corner and then withdrawing in silent and enigmatic victory. I could yell and scream and rail against him, but once that smug silence descended, I might as well be talking to myself. 

Tired, drained and emotional, I simply didn't feel up to fighting back. In silence, he climbed out of the car, took my suitcase from the boot and unlocked a huge industrial sized door at the back of the garage. I charged after him, following him up a staircase into the dark, past the back door to a restaurant, past a studio workspace, up into a large open plan loft. He deposited my suitcase in a corner, by a huge, kingsize bed, then pointed off towards a boarded off structure in the corner that I assumed was the bathroom.

Wearily, I retreated, and tried to clean myself up a bit, but as I stared at the stranger in the maternally conservative dress, reflected in the huge, cracked mirror, I whirled around. This was not who I was, not who I wanted to be, but some unwilling role that had been thrust upon me by the Thornaby-Gores. _I'd chew my own foot off to get out of this dress_.

When I emerged, Damien had disappeared, so I was left to explore the rest of the big, open loft by myself. At the back, in one of the brick-walled corners, was the bed, surrounded by piles of clothes draped over things that might have been chairs. Towards the front, or rather, the big open area with huge windows that looked out on the Thames, there were a few sofas dotted around, between piles of books and magazines. Clearing a place to sit, I threw myself down on the sofa, I sulked mightily, planning on simply not speaking to Damien for the rest of the evening. Fine, if that was what he wanted, two could play this game. Any second now, he was going to reappear with a huge grin on his face, ready to tell me his latest witty observation, and I was simply going to ignore him, wrapping my features in that same, blank enigmatic stare he'd turned on me earlier.

Any second now... Craning my neck, I tried to get a better view down the open stairwell, wondering where he had disappeared to. Had he gone back downstairs to the care to lock up the garage? Standing up, I paced back and forth a few times impatiently then set off in search of him with the explicit purpose of telling him that I was simply not speaking to him. I padded all the way down to the garage, only to find it deserted. _OK, maybe he's in the studio_ , I thought to myself, my curiosity piqued to the point where I'd forgotten the annoyance of a few minutes prior. I climbed the stairs to the mysterious mezzanine and peered in the now open door.

The black blazer he'd been wearing in the car was hanging on the peg by the door, so I assumed he must be there somewhere, but he was not at the paint-spattered desk near the door. Craning my neck, I tried to peer off into the depths of the studio, but there were several large installation pieces blocking my view. For a moment, I paused, hesitating on the threshold. To enter a person's studio uninvited was even more of a trespass than to enter their house - the house was merely where the body resided, but the studio... that was where the mind, the imagination was given free reign.

"Damien..." I called out softly, but there was no reply. The light was fading as the sun slid below the horizon, and the slanting reddish light of the sunset was sending crazy, elongated shadows across the floor, reflecting off the broken Perspex panel of a large cube in the centre of the room, bathing it with an otherworldly glow. "Are you in here?"

Taking a deep breath, I started across the floor, feeling all the hairs on the back of my neck standing on earth. Although he'd sworn to me that he didn't keep anything from _that_ infamous segmented animal series here, the shadows in the back of the room seemed menacing and bestial. Was that a bloodstain on the floor? No, just a smear of red paint, long dried. The whole room smelled vaguely of paint and wood glue; a busy, comforting, industrious smell, but the huge space seemed ominously quiet, except for the vague sounds of creaking timbers from the River Thames just outside the north wall.

Or were those footsteps behind me? Freezing, I paused to listen for a few seconds before whirling around, but I saw nothing but the hulk of an empty vitrine with the broken panel. Well, if he wanted to play this game, I could play this game, too, I thought to myself, suddenly dropping down to a crouch, hiding behind a large table covered with various carpentry tools, paint cans, brushes and other implements of destruction. Peeking out from behind my table, I surveyed the room, then started to crawl behind a rack of canvases. _Damn, dead end_. Raising my head slightly, I caught sight of a sudden movement over by what looked suspiciously like a giant spin-art machine. _Ah-ha!_

Backing slowly out of my dead end, I started to move toward it, but by the time I reached my destination, straightening my body behind the cover of the mechanism, he was already gone. Wait; what was that? A scuffling sound and a movement on the other side of the vitrine. With a cry of surprise, I leapt from behind my hiding place, and emerged into the open to find an empty paint can rolling across the floor.

Without warning, a hand appeared from behind me, snaking around my head and covering my mouth before I even had a chance to scream. Another hand seized me around the waist, picking me up bodily and dragging me over towards the cube, pushing me roughly up against it, my face pressed against the glass. For a moment, my mind reeled in utter panic, wondering if someone had broken into Damien's studio. Tabloid paparazzi, an international art thief, a common or garden rapist... Suddenly I felt a brush of stubble across the back of my neck and smelled his familiar scent. _Damien_. His hips were pressed up against my back, effectively pinning me to the glass while his other hand slid up the outside of my thigh, pushing my dress up out of the way.

My first thought was actually one of relief, that I was not about to be ravaged by some unknown assailant, but that was quickly replaced by annoyance. Damien's hand had reached its destination, groping at my buttocks, my dress up around my waist somewhere. As his fingers slid around my hip, coaxing a sudden pang of desire, my thoughts changed to _What the bloody hell took you so long_? Twisting around in his grip, I started to struggle, trying to turn around, to look at him, to kiss him, but he was holding me in a vice-like grip, his hand still clenched over my mouth. Without thinking what I was doing, I bucked wildly, then pulled back my lips and bit his finger. Damien yelped and let loose his hold on me long enough for me to slip away from him, but as soon as he realised that I was gone, he lunged for me, grabbing me by the arm and jerking me back towards him roughly.

Feeling vaguely like a rag-doll, crushed against his chest, I stared at him, fear and arousal both fighting for the upper hand in my mind. There was that wolfish grin, those marvellous teeth showing underneath the babyfaced smile as his face moved closer, his wide blue eyes looming larger. His lips touched mine, and I could feel his energy, moaning slightly as the thrust his tongue into my mouth, then fighting back, half kissing, half biting, wrapping my arms around his neck and letting my fingers slip down the back of his shirt, raking his skin carelessly with my fingernails.

Before I knew what was happening, I felt myself lifted into the air and whirled around. Damien staggered a few feet, then set me down on the edge of the table, clutching me to him with one hand while he cleared the table with a single stroke, sending paint cans and tools flying everywhere. Shoving me down onto the table, he pushed my dress up to my armpits, pausing to knead my breasts for a moment before pushing my knees apart, clawing urgently at my knickers. Raising my hips slightly, I let him pull them off me, kicking lazily until they hung about one ankle. Climbing up onto the table, he knelt above me, his body silhouetted against the burning light of the setting sun as he tore at his belt, ripping open the fly of his jeans. No petting, no foreplay; he just spat in his palm and practically fell on top of me. I was already so slick with excitement that he slipped inside easily, our bodies fitting together perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle, his hips slapping against my thighs, my mouth latching on to his thick bull neck and sucking like a baby at a teat.

I came almost immediately, surprising myself with the force of my orgasm. Damien had seized one of my legs and swung it around until I lay on my side, fucking me almost diagonally. The pressure of his thrusts between my clasped thighs had been torturous, merciless, unavoidable. I clenched my fists and held my breath until my head swam, but my body was no longer my own, my pleasure was running away with me uncontrollably, surging through my loins as if it was something over which I had no command over whatsoever.

A few more moments, and Damien's mouth found mine, his fingers tangled in my hair, his palms on my cheeks, sucking my tongue into his mouth hungrily. His strokes grew quicker, shorter, and then the rumble started in the pit of his belly, rising in volume as it rolled through his throat, spilling out into a long, low moan as his face contorted into pure ecstasy, his hips shuddering slightly as he spurted inside me.

For a few minutes, I lay still, catching my breath, playing distractedly with his hair and occasionally brushing my lips lazily across his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids. It wasn't until he moved, sitting up and laying a sticky hand on my thigh that I noticed the sensation of dampness across the back of my shoulders.

"Oh bloody hell," swore Damien, breaking the silence that had descended across the studio with the darkness.

"What?" I asked worriedly, sitting up to examine the dark, hand-shaped smear across my thigh, terrified that he had cut himself and was bleeding everywhere.

He raised his hands, palm outward, to show the bright blue paint all over them. "Sit up."

Complying, I raised my arms over my head so that he could pull my soiled dress over my head, but rather than running for the sink to rinse out the acrylic, he wiped his hands off on it, then proceeded to mop up the spill with it.

"Damien!" I whined sharply. So much for my demure, tastefully cut Mother-dress.

"It didn't suit you anyway. It was far too frumpy and conservative for someone as fucking sexy as you," offered Damien by way of apology, bending over to kiss me, then drawing back to study me, throwing the dress off in a corner. "Damn!"

"What?"

He grinned evilly, gesturing towards the Perspex box. "We should have done it in the vitrine. Would have been more ironic."

I burst out laughing. "We still can, if you like."

"Wait a minute. Don't move!"

I froze, basking in the feeling of the light draft across my bare skin. Through the gloom, I could half make out Damien digging in one of the drawers of his work desk, but I could not see what he was carrying until suddenly a bright light, like the flash bulb of a camera illuminated the room.

"Bloody hell! What are you doing?" I demanded, trying to roll myself up in a little ball to cover my nudity.

"Polaroids," shrugged Damien, pulling the photo from the camera and waving it in the air.

"What the hell do you want with nude polaroids of me?" I demanded, afraid of the answer to that question. Never _ever_ date a visual artist - this could be far worse than simply having a few top-40 songs written about me.

"To have a good wank over when you're not here, of course. What the hell else would I want them for?" shrugged Damien, fending off my attempts to snatch it away from him. "Come on, lie back, spread your legs again. I promise I won't show them to anyone."

I started to protest, but Damien pushed his hands between my thighs, prying them apart gently, then bending down to lick the tiny trail of semen dribbling down my leg. Lying on a table in the middle of his studio, wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of panties around one ankle, I started to feel very turned on again. So what if he blew them up life size and sold them to the fucking Suuchis for £50,000? I still had a set of "art photos" of Alex for which to get revenge.

Leaning back slightly, I braced myself with my arms, arching my back slightly and letting my legs part, staring at him from between my knees with all the defiant smoulder I could muster. Another flash and a moan, and I knew I was giving Damien what he wanted, leaning forward slightly, and letting my legs dangle off the edge of the table. He was coming closer with the camera now, almost uncomfortably close, so I rolled over onto my side, raising one leg to my chest. Reaching towards me, Damien ran his finger down the exposed strip of pink, trying to hold it open with one hand while he operated the camera with the other.

"Oh, shit! I'm out of film," he snorted, fiddling with the camera, but it would ejaculate no more photos.

"Do you have any more?" My exposed flesh felt curiously warm where he had touched me.

Damien leered, raising an eyebrow at my reversal of opinion. "Dammit, no," he sighed. "It's Sunday night. The shops'll be closed by now, as well. You know, I've had this fucking thing for two years now, and taken exactly four photographs with it before tonight." Kneeling down so that his head was even with the table top, he rolled me over onto my back and started peering at me through the viewfinder, parting my outer labia with his fingers, the camera so close I could feel his breath on my thighs. 

"I want a doctor, to take your picture, so I can look at you from inside as well," I sang quietly, under my breath, but loud enough for Damien to hear me. "Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so..."

"Stop that," he warned, slapping me playfully on the thigh. "What I always wanted to do was a piece of a copulating couple, cut in half down the middle. Like you always see these diagrams which explain how babies are made, but they're always so cold, so inhuman. I looked into doing it, too, but the health department threw a fit because of using human bodies. You know, you could do it if it wasn't an artwork, see. If it was a study - a specimen in a medical school or something. But you couldn't have it on display."

"So get a CAT scan done. An MRI or something," I offered breathily, lying back on the table and folding my arms behind my head, revelling in the sensation of his callused fingers against my skin. "They have 3-D computer imaging software that will slice and dice a human body any way you like, in graphic living colour..."

Suddenly Damien stopped, his ears pricked and his brow furrowed as if thinking deeply. I could practically hear the machinery grinding and turning between his ears. Without a word, he stopped, standing up straight, and walking away muttering to himself. "That's it..." He started to pace back and forth anxiously, then darted over, kissed me on the forehead, swept up the polaroids drying on the table and dashed off, out of the studio and up the stairs.

For a few minutes, I stared after him, then shrugged and picked myself up off the table. Although I'd never really been much of a one for snuggling and dozing after sex, Damien's behaviour confounded me. I'd heard jokes about people who wanted to jump up and go paint the house after sex, but he was the first person I'd ever known who literally did it. With a deep but satisfied sigh, I pulled my knickers back on and followed him up the stairs. 

I found him sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling on a notepad while he yelled down the phone at what I assumed was his long suffering assistant. "Yeah, look into getting me an MRI scan... No, I'm feeling fine. That critic from _Artscribe_ always told me I needed my head examined, well, now I'm finally going to get it done, har har... No, a big one. Big enough to fit two good sized adults in... Yeah, wouldn't you like to know what I'm up to. Can you do it? Fuck, I don't give a damn about the National Health, find me a Harley Street specialist, then... Fine! If we have to go to New York, we'll go to New York, then... Yeah, I know that's going to cost a lot of fucking money - just get me an estimate so I can write a fucking proposal!"

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kissed him gently on the top of the head, then crawled off to bed by myself for a well needed sleep.

 

Two days later, Damien was absolutely buzzing with his new-found obsession as I got ready to drive back to the airport, pausing in conversation only long enough to take various panicked phone calls from his harried personal assistant. When he got an idea in his head, he was utterly monomaniacal about it, doggedly pursuing it with fanatical preoccupation. It was quite impressive, really, the way his eyes lit up with that spark of blue fire, chain-smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes as he told me endless tales of his childhood obsession with medical prints. He seemed positively manic, in fact, leaping intuitively from connection to connection along a string of associations that looked like a straight line only in retrospect.

It was so easy to get caught up in his conversation, caught up in the ebullient mood, making leap after leap of logic defying insight. By the time we had circled from historical perceptions of hell through Hieronymous Bosch to medieval trepanning operations, and back to brain chemistry and tumours, it was time for me to drive to the airport. He grinned as he manhandled my suitcase into the car, his eyes twinkling as he looked into my face.

"It was so good to see you..." he ventured, taking my hands in his, his face glowing with unspoken possibilities. Suddenly the cell phone in his pocket bleated, like a child demanding attention. " _What_? Oh, you've found something? He'll meet with me this afternoon to talk about costs? Where?"

Smiling at him, I shook my head and climbed into my car, about to drive away with simply a wave, but he caught me by the hand, pursing his lips for a kiss. I kissed him as tenderly as I could over the top of the cell phone, ruffled his hair affectionately and pulled out onto the street, smiling back over my shoulder.

Damien's infectious good mood lasted half the way across the Atlantic, and then the doubts started to set in. Although I had been incredibly comfortable with our casual parting at the time, after two glasses of free brandy, I started to turn every detail of the exchange over and over in my head. Should I have stayed, waiting for him to finish his phone conversation, and said goodbye properly, discussing our plans for the future, or did I make the right decision, not bothering him when he was working? 

Part of me liked the open-ended nonchalant attitude, but part of me wanted to pin Damien down and make sure he understood very clearly exactly what this wasn't. I didn't want a relationship, did I? No, that much I was sure of. The months of selfish freedom, of concentrating completely and exclusively on myself, without worrying about impressing or pleasing Alex, Jeremy, Tristram, Peter or anyone else had been the most productive, calm and liberating months of my life. I wasn't prepared to give that freedom up for anyone. Perhaps I should have made that more clear... 

And then the guilt arrived to keep the doubt company. I did not love Damien, I told myself repeatedly, ignoring the way my thoughts constantly returned to him, even in his absence. I was very fond of him, I repeated in an endless mantra, I was challenged and rewarded by his conversation and his company, and we had lively and dirty - wonderfully dirty sex, but _no, I did not love him_.

Besides, I simply didn't have the time for a relationship. In fact, what was I doing ending the weekend I was supposed to have devoted entirely to my son in a tawdry sex fling? And those polaroids... oh god, what was he going to do with those polaroids? Scrunching myself down into my chair, I writhed with self doubt. If there was one thing I seemed to have an infinite capacity for, it was self loathing. Everything Tristram had said about me during the course of the trial started to bounce about my head simultaneously. I was a bad mother, an irresponsible woman and a degenerate debauchee. That was it, I simply had to end the affair with Damien - if I could even properly call it an affair - and try to get those damn photographs back before they could reappear to jeopardise what little time I was actually allowed with my son.

JFK International Airport was as depressing as ever, and as I stood enduring the interminable wait for the bus to the subway, I suddenly found myself wishing for Damien, remembering how wonderful it had been to step off the plane at Heathrow and see a familiar face awaiting me. _No! I was not in love_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kate keeps going to parties in NYC, and finding that a certain _someone_ is conveniently there. And after a series of happy shags, realises that she might actually have a boyfriend.

For the next few days, I was sullen and moody, skulking around down in the basement, endlessly running back and forth over the same master tapes, making almost imperceptible changes in my basslines. Nothing could quite assuage the aching sense of loss that had dogged me since I returned from London. Night after night the image of Ian danced in my head as I slept, as he faded further and further away from me. This endless anticipation of the scarce and brief chances to bond with my son seemed torturous, even cruel. Just when I had got to the point where I had grieved my loss, and nearly come to terms with it, 48 hours with the tiny blond infant reopened the wounds and started the process all over again.

Beth and Maddie accepted my moodiness, and gave me a supportive yet much-needed wide berth when I got into my crying jags, dropping in every few hours to bring me a cup of hot tea or a sandwich, but leaving me, for the most part, to my mourning. Closeting myself in my room, I lay in the semi-darkness behind the curtains, obsessively listening to my favourite Radioshack album over and over again, as if I could find the answers to all my problems lurking behind the fractured chords.

However, when Emma came back from yet another extended stay in Berlin, she found my endless sulking unacceptable, and did everything within her power to snap me out of it.

"Come on, Kate," she demanded, flopping herself down on my couch one night. The same couch Damien had pressed me down onto and... "I think a good party will cheer you up. Come on - I know a massive warehouse party down in Tribeca tonight. It's going to be the coolest thing happening all year! Everyone who is anyone in the downtown scene is going to be there."

"So take Maddie," I shrugged. "Take Beth - she loves those scenester shmoozefests."

"Maddie and Carlos already had plans. And Beth - god knows what she's up to lately."

"She hasn't even told you who the new mystery man is?" I probed, desperate to change the subject. Spending an evening with the desperately hip of New York City was simply not my idea of fun.

"I'm her best friend, and she's told me nothing!" she complained, distracted for a moment, before dragging the conversation kicking and screaming back to the topic at hand. "But we're not talking about Beth, we're talking about _you_. You need to get out of your bedroom, and just party for a change."

"I don't trust you," I snorted, tossing a pillow at her. "This is going to turn out to be yet another hare-brained scheme of Rob Sugarpussy's to set me up with one of his loser friends, and I'm having none of it."

"You just want to sit around and sulk for the rest of your life. I'm not going to let you do that, Kate."

"Why not? I think I'm entitled to sulk right now!"

Emma glared at me. "Look. Do you think I feel peachy keen, having to come back here by myself because Klaus is off on tour again? I'm not going to sit around and let you drag me down even further by sulking all the time. Now maybe that's purely self interest, but I'm not having it! You are not the only person who is upset because they miss someone they love," she teased in her gruff attempt at humour, but I completely missed the point of her statement.

"I'm not in love with Damien!" I protested, a little too quickly to sound convincing.

" _Damien_? Who's Damien? I meant Ian."

"Oh," I stuttered, suddenly turning a bit flushed. Of course, she knew nothing about him; why would she be referring to him?

"So who's Damien?" she probed, refusing to let go of it.

"Just some stupid bloke..."

"Bloke? An Englishman? Kate, stay away from those skinny English pop stars with their flopping fringes. You don't need that sort of a headache again. Haven't you learnt yet?"

I nearly burst out laughing at the description. Damien was certainly not a skinny, floppy-haired pop star, he was rather stocky, and he had short, spiky hair that was only a few weeks away from a buzz cut. I couldn't think of a man further away from my usual type. "Don't worry about me, Emma..."

"I won't worry about you if you come to the damn party and socialise a bit!"

"I don't _want_ to go out,” I persisted, flopping back on my bed like a petulant teenager and turning the volume on the stereo up just a little louder to drown her out.

"You know what half the problem is," snorted Emma, moving over towards my stereo. "This fucking music. How can you listen to this maudlin shit?"

"I like listening to sad music when I’m unhappy. It makes me feel better, like I'm less alone in my misery."

"Except you're not. I think it is actually making you worse. You're just using it as an excuse to wallow at this point. You need to change the fucking record in your head." She stabbed the eject button of the CD player, and the music hiccoughed and stopped. "Get this maudlin fucking shit with this whinging fucking singer out of your eardrums and put on something good..."

"Maudlin fucking shit?" I protested. "That is _Yes, TRS-80_. That 'whinging' singer is Thom Eboracum, the voice of our generation. That album was voted one of the best records of last year by every publication in the known world, I'll have you know - and it might even the best record of the entire 90s."

"It's shitty progressive rock, it's maudlin as all hell, the guy's a miserable moaning bastard, and I'm not fucking having it." Unable to locate the CD case, she gave up and tossed the disc across the room, pulling another CD out of my shelves. "This is what you should be listening to. First Ramones album, fucking classic. It is proven by science, that it is absolutely impossible to be miserable while listening to the Ramones. Here, listen to this."

"One-two-three-four!" shouted Johnny Ramone from the speakers, and my room was filled with an infectious bubblegum punk.

"Hey! Ho! Let's go!" Emma sang along, jumping up and down, dancing along with the record.

She had a point, or perhaps her enthusiasm was just infectious as I started to nod my head along with the beat, but when she jumped onto the end of my bed and tried to grab me by the hands and haul me to my feet, I pushed her away. "Alright, alright, you've made your point. I'll come out with you."

"Now put on a fucking dress and stop whining!" With Emma, I was not even allowed the luxury of trying on and rejecting several outfits, as had become the tradition between Beth, Maddie and I. Well aware of my tendencies, Emma would simply disappear into my closet, pick out the first thing she saw and order "Wear this one." Luckily, Emma had a very good eye for other people's clothes, even if she did dress like the poster child for the Salvation Army herself.

Half an hour later, we were in a taxi sailing downtown. As opposed to Maddie's obsession with punctuality, Emma had the New Yorker sixth sense as to the exact moment at which to show up to a party to find it just beginning to hit full swing. The party was already fairly full by the time we arrived, and I would have slid in anonymously, but Emma walked in with the natural aplomb of a princess coming home to her court, smiling jauntily and waving, shouting out to her friends.

I had to give it to her - she had guts. The singer of one of the coolest bands in New York turned around, grinned and excused himself from his conversation to amble over and throw his arms around her, air kissing her on the cheek. "You made it! Did you have a good flight? How's Klaus?" he burbled, bouncing up and down excitedly.

"It was a flight. Klaus is, well, Klaus." The both laughed knowingly, and I felt slightly lost.

Another hipster wandered over and greeted my bandmate like a homecoming queen. "Emma, when did you get back from Berlin? So great to see you. Is Klaus here?"

I felt my eyes glazing over with boredom. Although Emma slid into the conversation as naturally as if she'd been born into it, this was not my crowd. In fact, I probably felt about as out of place as Emma had felt back during our first tour of England, when I had been running around London with members of Slur and Crest and Mirage. Smiling wanly at Emma, I sat out the conversation, amusing myself by playing spot-the-celebrity in the crowd. Why, yes, there was Thurston and Kim. This was obviously an event worthy of New York rock royalty.  And not just rock royalty - they seemed to be hanging out with a couple of notorious performance artists from the 70s

"Hi, Kate," greeted Rob Sugarpussy, the first person to actually notice me sulking next to Emma. "Surprised to see you here - I thought you were in England."

"I was, last weekend," I explained, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow me so I didn't feel so hopelessly out of place. At least he hadn't mentioned my disastrous date with his singer, but as soon as he'd greeted me, he turned almost immediately to Emma and her hipster mates, and I was left to scan the crowd. An older couple walked by, all shapeless, functional black clothes and cantilevered hairdos, and I blinked, wondering if it was really Lou and Laurie or I was seeing things.

"Wowee!" Rob wailed, followed by a steady stream of slang I could not begin to comprehend, slapping hands all around him. "This party is so fucking weird. Oh my god, I'm almost afraid to skin up around here. It's cool that Thurston and Kim invited all their uptown arty friends, but don't you just feel like a bunch of kids having a sleepover party while your mom has a dinner party downstairs..."

Emma glared at him, obviously annoyed, but fully aware that to respond to Rob's teasing was to only invite more. But as I looked around, I realised that it was actually completely true. Along this side of the room, the younger generation of New York hipsters stood gathered in loose throngs, while on the other side of the room, a circle of the previous generation's icons stood around like they were holding court.

"This is too fucking surreal," I muttered to no one in particular. "I need a drink..."

"May I see some ID, young lady," nattered Rob, breaking into his little old Jewish grandmother routine.

"Shut up!" I sighed, rolling my eyes. I was just not in the mood for it tonight. In fact, I was not really in the mood for being in public at all. I had only come to make Emma happy, really, and now Emma and her mates were too deep in their conversation to pay any attention to me.

"Oh, watch the attitude, young lady! Kids today, I tell ya..."

Ignoring Rob's over-familiar jokes, I stumbled blindly towards the bar, wondering what the hell I was doing here. This was no more my social scene than the coked up ad executives masquerading as art critics I had ignored down in Soho a few weeks ago. Then again, where had I ever fit in? My mind wandered back to drunken evenings, stumbling through Soho with Alex, his reprobate mates and... Damien. Why was it whenever I tried my hardest _not_ to think about him, he always bubbled to the surface of my thoughts?

As I stood at the bar, positioned halfway between the grown-ups dinner party and the kids' sleepover party, I watched two figures - a small elderly woman with huge, owlish glasses, and a man half hidden behind her - detach themselves from the grown-ups and head over towards the bar. Putting my head down, I concentrated on the beer taps in front of me, praying that my gin and tonic would magically arrive before I had to talk to anyone.

My drink appeared, and I tried to dart away, but she had caught sight of me. I smiled weakly and nodded, but she squinted, and then squealed with delight. "Katie Gordon!"

"Hullo," I half mumbled, staring down at my shoes.

"You probably don't remember me, do you?" she chuckled. "You were a _very_ little girl the last time I saw you. I was friends with your father back in his Fluxus days."

"Really?" asked a strangely familiar voice behind her.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Have you two met yet?" the woman asked politely. As she stepped back, I glanced up, looking over into the perfectly clear blue eyes of... _Damien_. I had barely recognised him in his immaculately tailored suit, the royal blue of his silk shirt setting off the sapphire of his eyes. His hair was slightly longer and shaggier than the last time I'd seen him, but he was clean shaven, and almost devastatingly handsome when he smiled that naughty grin.

_Have we met_? I was tempted to reply _No, we've just fucked once or twice, that's all_. 

"Katie, this is Damien Hearse, the famous Young British Artist. Damien, this is Katie Gordon. I used to know her parents, once upon a time. I lost track of them, ages ago, though, after my art brought me to New York. So good to see you, Katie. Do remember me to your father."

Oh god, let the floor open, let the floor open and swallow me whole _now_.

"Oh, really?" asked Damien, grinning at me insolently, obviously enjoying the look of surprise and embarrassment on my face.

"Yes, Katie's mum and dad used to come into the Indica Gallery all the time. They were friends with Barry Miles and John Dunbar, you know. Oh, and Ray, of course. Ray Davies of the Kinks," she added, as an aside to Damien. "Didn't he live in your garage for a while?"

"No," I whined apologetically. "They kept their equipment there while their record company were suing them."

"My memory is not what it used to be..."

"It's pretty sharp if you remember my mum and dad," I ventured.

"Oh, I remember them clearly from the Fluxus days. Your dad was such a kidder, such a joker, all the time. And so quiet, Richard was - you never expected it from him, but he was killingly funny. I got him his first show in New York, you know."

Suddenly Damien's face lit up as if a piece of a jigsaw puzzle was finally falling into place. Oh god no, he's figured it out. "Your father was Richard Gordon, seminal member of the Chelsea Set... "

"Oh, please, don't start with that Chelsea Set stuff," I begged. "He was a hanger-on in that scene, who was lucky enough to be friends with a bunch of pop stars because he once fixed a guitar amp for the Rolling Stones."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, as the elderly conceptual artist noticed another friend across the room and wandered off, leaving us on our own.

"It's not that big of a deal."

"I'm probably one of the few people in the world who actually knows who he is. He was one of the first people to have a sound-art installation at the Indica..." Although his encyclopaedic knowledge of the 1960's London art scene was impressive, I simply didn't want to hear it.

"Damien," I warned sharply. "He was a second rate hack artist, a jack of all trades, master of none, who was lucky enough to get into the computer industry at the beginning. He was also an utter cad who ran away to California with another woman, leaving my mother, my older brother and I utterly penniless. I don't really care what your opinion of him as an artist might have been, because he was not a very admirable person, and not someone I choose to dwell on."

Damien stared at me, realising that this was probably more information about my past and my family background than I'd ever told anyone outside my immediate circle. Reaching out, he ran his finger along my cheek, taking my chin in his hands and raising my gaze to his. "I never even knew my father," he confided in a very low voice. "He walked out on my Mum before I was born. I was adopted by my Mum's husband, who I never knew was not my real Dad, until he, also, left, when I was a teenager, and chucked that information in, as a parting gift."

"Oh god..." I choked. So that explained his bizarre rant about adoption.

"And I'm sure that says all sorts of Freudian things about me that I generally don't like to get put about, either. So I'll make you a deal - I will never talk about your father, if you never mention mine." His eyes flashed angrily, the ocean behind them churning.

I sighed, relenting. "That's probably not the most healthy thing to agree to. Here and now is probably neither the time nor the place, though."

"Perhaps..."

We stared at each other warily, as if searching for a safe topic of conversation. Suddenly, the massive rolling ocean behind his blue eyes seemed to take on a hurt, defensive light, and I felt the urge to just reach out and wrap him in my arms, stroking his bristly hair. What kind of weight was that, to carry around on his shoulders?

"Though you never did tell me what you are doing here. Are you following me?" I added, trying awkwardly to change the subject and fight the rising panic in the pit of my stomach.

"Not exactly. I've known old Dottie for years, now. She was actually one of the first people outside the UK to own one of my pieces, and when she heard I was in New York, she said I absolutely had to come to this party."

"But what are you doing in New York?" I probed.

"I was still looking for an... accommodating MRI clinic," he explained. "Of course, I hoped you might be here," he added with a flirtatious smirk. "I've still not found anyone I'd rather screw in a glorified x-ray machine..."

"Oh, no! You don't think..." I protested, but Damien merely leaned forward and kissed me, silencing my objections with his lips and his tongue, tangling his fingers in the hair at the back of my neck. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I clutched him against me, squeezing him so hard I thought I would break him. When I finally pulled away, I stared at him carefully, memorising the bittersweet expression on his face, and feeling a tightening in my chest as I fiercely thought that if anyone ever tried to hurt him again, I could kill them with my bare hands. "Alright, yes," I conceded.

Damien grinned. "I knew you'd come round."

"Do you want to come home with me?" I asked hopefully, feeling the familiar tickle of desire spreading across my body.

Damien shook his head. "Not yet," he sighed, then, noting my crestfallen expression, pushed the corners of my mouth up into a smile with this thumb and forefinger. "Though I wouldn't mind going somewhere else, more... intimate."

I nodded appreciatively, brightening slightly. "Yes, I'd like that." Please, get me away from these people who are supposed to be my friends and my peers, yet only succeed in making me feel more alienated.

"Have you had dinner yet?" he offered. I shook my head, as I'd actually been expecting to nibble on the free food all night. "There's this place just down the block that a friend of mine has been raving about."

I nodded gratefully, and the two of us strolled out into the warm evening air, hand in hand. Tribeca was deserted at that time of the evening, but as we walked towards Canal St. we started to see signs of civilisation. But as we crossed Canal and started to head up Thompson, I started to worry.

"Where are we going, Damien?"

"Oh, this little African place right around the corner... here it is."

I froze as we stopped outside the large, bright green building. There was no way he could have known that this was the restaurant where Alex and I had eaten... was it nearly two years ago? It seemed like another lifetime.

Sensing my hesitation, Damien grinned. "Oh come on - it's fun. You sit on these little baskets on the floor and you eat with your fingers. It's marvellous - or so I've heard."

"From whom?" What did it matter? Why did I care?

Damien thought for a moment. "Matthew, perhaps? No, wait. It was Alex. Your Alex, come to think of it."

"He's not _my_ Alex," I replied rather testily, flinging open the door and tramping up the stairs. I refused to live my life avoiding my favourite places because they reminded me a love affair long dead. But try as I might to convince myself that I felt nothing, I felt a vague twinge as I stared at the table where we'd sat and the window through which we'd flirted, feeding each other bits of injera. Whirling around and turning my back on the past, I headed for the other side of the restaurant.

"Oh... can't we sit by the window?" suggested Damien.

"No!" I snapped, a bit too quickly, then added. "There are no screens. We'd be crawling with flies in a minute."

"I _like_ flies," teased Damien, nonetheless following me over to the corner seat. I sat down, ordered a bottle of honey wine and rattled off my favourite meal to the waiter without even looking at the menu.

"So you've been here before," noted Damien, impressed.

I nodded, slightly annoyed, though unable to put my finger on exactly what I was annoyed at. "I was the person who brought Alex here in the first place."

"Oh." The moment passed in awkward silence. Where the hell was that bottle of honey wine?

"It's always a good place to bring boyfriends," I reflected, really just babbling in an attempt to fill the uncomfortable silence up with noise. "You can tell right away from the attitude they show towards eating with their fingers exactly how they are going to be in bed." Oh god, shut me up, shut me up now! Where the hell did that come from? I'd only had one glass of gin and tonic back at the party; I could not possibly be drunk.

But Damien roared with laughter. "I'll have to remember that when the food comes!" he chuckled, taking the honey wine from the waiter and pouring two glasses. "So I'm a _boyfriend_ now, am I?" he added with a self-satisfied wink, clinking his glass against mine. "I've been promoted, then. Ace."

"Erm..." Oh god, this had been exactly the conversation I had been trying to avoid. He kept finding a way to bring it into every verbal exchange, didn't he?

But as he took a sip of his wine, his expression changed to pure delight. "Bloody hell, this is good! What did you say it was?"

"Honey wine. It's a bit like mead," I explained, glad of any excuse to change the conversation.

"This is damn good! I'm going to have to look into getting some for my restaurant."

"It's what the Anglo Saxons used to drink. And the ancient Britons before them. Because grapes aren't native to the British Isles, they were brought over by the Romans," I rambled on uncomfortably. Why was it that whenever I got nervous, I felt compelled to dredge up every iota of useless information crammed into my brain? "So I guess it's appropriate for Young British Cuisine or whatever."

Damien guffawed, nearly spitting out his wine. "You're wicked."

"So I've been told." I took another gulp of my wine, feeling quite bold. I loved making him smile; I loved the naughty little leer that made him look like he was up to no good whatsoever.

"So what's your father like?" he ventured abruptly, almost completely innocently.

"Damien!" I warned. Bloody hell - was that all he wanted to talk about? I'd spent my entire life both playing down and living down my family's tiny role in the notorious history of Swinging London. I'd almost succeeded, but trust Damien to go prying into it.

"No, I don't mean like _that_ ," he assured me, sensing my discomfort. "I mean, what's it like to actually still _have_ one, even if you don't like him. I've always been fascinated by families - by how people actually fit together into these little social units. Of course, I've never really known anyone with a perfect nuclear family unit. Except perhaps Alex. He's so completely normal it's actually shocking." He lowered his voice slightly, raising an eyebrow in moral outrage. "His parents are still together, you know!"

"Scandalous," I agreed, feeling vaguely like I was caught in some surreal out take from a Wilde farce. Actually, I'd never even met Alex's parents. For a moment, I wondered if he'd been ashamed of me. Then again, what would I have said to them? I simply wouldn't have known how to behave. The stultified atmosphere of Tristram's family, for all their dysfunctional creepiness, at least seemed familiar to me.

"It was bizarre for me to meet people who were so... hyper-normal. I didn't think they existed outside of television programs," continued Damien with a mischievous sparkle to his eye.

"What about your family?" I countered. For some reason, I simply did not wish to discuss Alex's family life, especially in a vaguely cynical light. If Damien felt the need to belittle Alex, why didn't he just come out and say it, giving me something concrete to latch my floating suspicions onto, rather than dancing around the issue?

Damien's brow grew wrinkled, a deep crease appearing between his eyebrows. "We were considered insalubrious - even vaguely scandalous. We may joke about these things, now, in this day and age, but in Bristol, in 1965, you simply didn't have unwed mothers." His voice was light-hearted and sarcastic, but his eyes were steely, as if he was choking back pain. "No one could understand why my mum just didn't get it _taken care of_ , as they say." I cringed involuntarily at how exactly his phrase echoed Alex's, only a few months ago. "Though of course, abortion was also something that just didn't happen in Bristol in 1965." He took another swig of his honey wine, then refilled his glass, but his voice and his movements tight and controlled, as if he were holding back immense amounts of anger. "So we moved to Leeds to get away from the scandal and the gossip, but it just followed us when my adopted dad left, the way people looked at us askance, and told their children not to play with me, because obviously whatever I had that had driven two fathers away was horrendously contagious..."

Without realising it, I had taken his hand and started to stroke it gently. The dinner arrived, and our conversation was abruptly broken as Damien withdrew his hand. "That must have been hard, starting all over again like that," I observed lamely. Hard wasn't even the word for it, I reflected, remembering the turmoil that had descended over an idyllic childhood when my family had been uprooted and relocated to the States.

"Not really," he shrugged, eyeing the food suspiciously for a moment before ripping off a piece of injera and picking up a big lump of potato. "In fact, I think it was better. My mum got a decent job, and made a half-hearted attempt at looking after me, but basically I just ran wild," he asserted, chewing thoughtfully. "And I was a right little animal as a boy."

I smirked madly. He talked with his mouth full, but it was actually rather endearing. Although he'd learned to put on a jacket and tie and play the success game, underneath lurked the uncivilised little boy who was still running wild.

"So, am I good in bed?" he demanded abruptly, quite loudly, changing the subject deftly. So loudly, in fact, that several people seated near us turned around.

" _Pardon_?" Where the hell did that come from? My face flushed bright red as I suddenly fell to examining the hem of my dress quite intently.

"Am I good in bed?" he repeated, in a little more sedate tone. "You said that you could tell how your boyfriend was going to be in bed by the way he ate with his hands. You're smirking like the cat that ate the canary, so you must be thinking about sex..."

"I was not!" I protested. For once in my life, I had actually not been thinking about sex. I'd been trying to imagine Damien as a little boy, but for some reason, all I saw were Ian's bright blue eyes. He grinned toothily, pausing for a moment from bolting down his food. If I didn't stop talking and start eating soon, there wasn't going to be much left for me. "You're a walking contradiction, just like in everything else," I finally guessed. "On one hand, you try to bolt everything down, as much as possible, as quickly as possible, to experience everything you can, but on the other hand, you're so caught up in thinking, in talking, in analysing that you forget you're actually eating."

"So, are you saying you can't experience and think at the same time?"

"Well..." I had to stop and think about that one. Damn, he always did this, didn't he? He'd ask something that sounded so deceptively simple that I barely thought about it, but the moment I opened my mouth I realised I didn't have the faintest clue how to answer it. "I'm not sure," I finally confessed. "I mean, at the time, one is generally so caught up in the moment and just letting the sensations wash over you, and just _being_ \- I think it's only later that you go back and examine the experience and assign motivations and intellectually analyse what you were experiencing. Because how can you be simultaneously _in_ the now, totally lost to the moment, yet examining it objectively without losing sight of the ability to _enjoy_ the subjective now?" I postulated carefully, hoping that he understood what I was saying, because I wasn't entirely sure. Thank god for those lectures on Post-Modernism I'd endured at college. I couldn't spell it, I didn't know what it meant, but it sure came in handy when trying to wrestle with Damien's slippery silver tongue.

"Oh, _I_ can," he shrugged flippantly, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "See, the problem with assuming ultimate subjectivity is that it fails to take into account my fundamentally divided Gemini nature."

"No!" I exploded, growing cross with him. "I absolutely refuse to sit here and listen to you counter Post-Modernism with your astrology nonsense. I just won't stand for it, Damien!"

"Why not? If you're a Post-Modernist, then you reject the hierarchy of knowledge that would place philosophy above astrology," he pointed out.

"Oh stop. It's all bollocks, anyway, isn't it?" I huffed, forgetting that I had been the one to bring it up in the first place. "It's just one of those impressive words people like to throw around without having the faintest clue what it means," I ranted, ignoring the hypocritical nature of that statement. "The day someone gives me a coherent definition of Post-fucking-Modernism is the day I will listen to an argument which utilises it!"

"Ah," crowed Damien triumphantly, moving his pawn into position for the check mate. "But Post-Modernism, by its very definition _rejects_ the authority of absolute objective definitions!"

I stared at him, dumbfounded, as he scooped up the last of the red lentils with a piece of injera and deposited it in his mouth with a smug, self satisfied expression.

"Besides... I never thought you'd be a subjectivist because Post-Modernism is so passé," he sang softly and rather tunelessly.

Wiping my fingers with the napkin, I glared at him, my lower lips quivering as I threw down the napkin on the empty platter. How dare he throw the Jackson Bollocks in my face like that? "You're mocking me, aren't you?"

"I am not mocking you!" he insisted, leaning backwards against the wall, picking up his wineglass and taking a long swig.

"Just because you went to Goldsmiths fucking College with all your intellectual friends and sat around discussing Foucault and McLuhan all day, getting drunk on your grant money, you think that gives you the right to make fun of me?" I was practically shaking with anger, pausing only to take a sip of the heady wine which was now coursing through my bloodstream. "Well, I didn't. I dropped out of fucking architecture school because between the band and working to keep my head above the bloody water, I just didn't have the fucking time. You may have been sitting around smoking pot and talking about life on the edge, but I was actually out there living it! So all these impressive words and fancy ideology that you've learned to throw around - you were fucking spoon fed them by professors and art critics and toadies - but you know what? Everything that I know is _mine_ and mine alone because I read it and learnt it _by myself_ instead of having everything just handed to me on a silver platter!"

"Kate!" cried Damien, leaning forward and seizing my arms around the wrists. I tried to shrug him off, but he held fast. "Kate, look at me." Like a recalcitrant child, I complied. "Where's all this coming from?"

"And don't ever throw the Jackson fucking Bollocks in my face ever again!"

"Who?" Damien looked genuinely puzzled.

"You know!" I sung a few bars of the song he had just parodied in a cutting, sarcastic tone.

He shrugged innocently. "Is that who does that song? I heard it on the radio the other day - I thought it was funny, that's all."

Of course - how could he have known? Looking away, I suddenly felt rather foolish. "I had a miserable, failed love affair with their guitarist. He... Christ, it was one of the sticks that Alex used to beat me with."

"Oh." He shifted awkwardly, looking genuinely embarrassed at his gaffe. "I didn't know that - I'm terribly sorry... I really didn't mean to... I just thought it was a good song. You have excellent taste in ex-boyfriends. Come on, look at me," he urged, reaching out and pulling my chin up to meet his gaze.

"I'm sorry," I finally sniffed. "I didn't mean to act quite so much like a spoiled brat. It's just..." I took a deep sigh, not used to the art of apology. "My entire life, I've grown used to being able to just slide through by being clever. No matter how bad things got, or how horrible people were to me, I could console myself by being more intelligent than they were. And now, for the first time in my life, I've met someone who's not only cleverer than I am, but educated, as well."

Damien shook his head. "I'm not cleverer than you are. Just cheekier. You need to have more faith in yourself."

I shook my head, not wanting to hear it, wanting simply to drown in my own self pity party.

"In a way, I envy you for _not_ having the education. I only did it because I knew it was the only way a working class boy like me was every going to bloody well get _on_ in this world. But in a lot of ways, I think it was perhaps _de_ structive. Like I said, I envy you, because while no one has ever told you what to think, no one has ever told you what _not_ to think. You don't have to break out of the restrictive logical box because you were never in the box to start with! You take things as you see them, as you sense them, as you experience them, and you truly fucking _live_ them." He paused, flagging down the waiter. "Do you want another bottle of wine, or should we go somewhere else?" 

I shook my head, intrigued by what he was saying. "We can go somewhere else."

"So perhaps in a way, you are right. I am cold, and rational, and there is always a detached, calculating part of myself - observing and analysing everything without ever being able to participate fully." He paid the man and we stood up, wandering out into night, taking my arm as we strolled off down the street. "I would love to be able to completely lose control, just lose myself completely. That's why I love pop stars so much - because musicians seem to be able to do just that, almost on demand, slipping into that bacchanalian orgy of pure sensory existence, because they are so caught up in their music. Even when I take fucking drugs, hallucinogens, all that shit, there's always the camera back there, watching and thinking. Sometimes, during sex, I almost feel it, but only if..." his voice trailed off.

"Only if what?" I asked, curiously, wondering what it was that he was missing in our encounters.

"Well, you've had sex with me," he teased. "You know what gets me off."

"Seizing control from someone else," I mused. So that explained the need for the darkness, for the elaborate hunter and prey scenarios.

"I just want to turn off that fucking internal chatter! I can do it through sex, and I can do it when I drink myself into a fucking blackout, and I used to be able to do it through art..."

"What do you mean, _used_ to?"

"I wasn't very successful when I first started out, because I was actually saying and doing what I felt. So I took a look around me, and I learnt how it was done - looked at those around me, and learned how to play the fucking game. And do you know what? The more calculating and cynical I became and the more calculating and cynical my art was, the more successful I was. Because perhaps this is what this age wants from its fucking art. Total calculating cynicism. Alex always says that I could define our entire fucking generation... but the closer I come to defining my generation's art, the further I get from whatever it is that I first fucking wanted out of art in the first place."

"Well, what did you want out of art?"

"I wanted to be a star. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be _the_ most famous British artist in centuries. I wanted to be famous on the level of pop stars and politicians, so that every fucking housewife in Leeds that had every called me that weird Hearse kid would know my name. And then, I _thought_." He paused for effect. "Then I'd be happy."

He stopped as we both came to a stop at a traffic light. If his dream had come true, why was he glaring out into the darkened street? "Are you not happy, then?"

"I'm deliriously fucking happy!" he bellowed, turning around and looking about him. "Bar!" he exclaimed, noticing a trendy watering hole done up to look like a hole in the wall. "Bar?"

"Baaar!" I answered in kind, and the two of us stumbled in, alternately bah-ing like sheep and snickering madly at our private joke.

"What can I get you?" offered the bartender in a congenial tone.

"Baaar!" I told him, and Damien and I both cracked up again.

"A shot of tequila," Damien supplied between giggles.

"Two," I added.

Taking the shot-glasses from the bartender, we retreated to an empty booth in a darker corner in the bar. A lick of salt, a smooth shudder of the liquor, and then a mouth-puckering sourness of lemon later, Damien grinned at me. "Actually, at this moment, I'm fucking happier than I've been in years."

"I think you mean drunker..."

He shook his head, reaching under the table and squeezing my thigh reassuringly. "No, I mean happier." Pausing thoughtfully, he grinned at me. "So, I have an appointment with the NYU MRI Research Centre tomorrow afternoon. Will you come with me?"

I nearly burst out laughing. "Let me get this straight. You want me to have sex with you, not just in public, but in a medical lab, so you can film us from the inside out and make art out of it."

"That's the idea, yeah."

"And what if I said no?" I probed.

He shrugged arrogantly. "You won't say no."

"Oh?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as I moved my chair back, away from him. Of course I would do it, but I wanted to toy with him.

"Nah, you're so vain you'd actually get off on the idea of being an artist's model," he teased, hooking his foot under the rungs of my chair and pulling me closer. "You're into that whole sentimental idea of muses and all that crap. I could totally see you fancying yourself a modern day Lizzie Siddal or Jane Morris or one of those rubbishy Pre-Raphaelite wenches that you admire so much."

I stared back at him coolly and calmly, by this time wise to his technique. Damien actually considered this incendiary banter flirtation, a habit I was more than willing to indulge with my argumentative streak. "The only reason you loathe the Pre-Raphaelites is because representational art makes you feel insecure about your own technical draughtsmanship ability," I shrugged, knowing that it was better to go on the attack than rise to his bait by defending myself.

Damien threw his head back, roaring with laughter, then leaning forward to nuzzle my neck with his nose. "Touché, my dear. Now shall we go back to your place and get some practice for our appointment tomorrow?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only one thing can persuade Kate to stop hanging round her apartment in NYC, moping and listening to Radioshack's Yes TRS-80 on repeat. And that's an invitation to go and stay with Damien in London. But does she really have to run into the ex-boyfriend that broke her heart, at such an importune moment?
> 
> In the meantime, Beth is keeping secrets from her bandmates, and Emma will go to any lengths to find out what - or _who_ \- she is hiding.

Damien's words about happiness were strangely prophetic. For the next few days, I was happier than I'd been in months. He fit seamlessly into my life, occasionally gently reminding me of his presence with his mischievous antics, but never getting in my way or imposing. Every time I turned around, I simply found him there, at my side, picking up whatever I indicated before I even knew I needed it, paying for my drinks, laughing heartily at my jokes, enveloping me the whole time in a comforting cocoon of shared in-jokes, pointed, meaningful looks and deepening conversations. If there was one thing Damien loved, it was to talk, enticing, teasing or sometimes even downright bullying me into a constant patter of debate. 

I found myself caught up in his arguments, growing more and more engaged, and even sometimes enraged, until he would simply burst out laughing, and I would shamefacedly realise that the entire thing had been merely an intellectual exercise for him. At first, I was vaguely annoyed at what I took for insincerity, but soon I learned to recognise the signs that he was baiting me, and started turn his own logic back on him, going on the attack and countering his wild flights of fancy with even more fanciful ones, building up elaborate houses of cards from words and meanings.

By the time he left New York, headed for some mysteriously important video shoot, his company had progressed from comfortable to absolutely agreeable to almost necessary. Waking up alone in my big bed, without his furry arm wrapped loosely around my waist, I felt utterly and completely dejected and forlorn. Sulking about the house, I could feel his absence like a tangible presence. Yet still, I doggedly, obstinately insisted that I was _not_ in love. To fall in love was the absolute last thing I needed in my life at this moment.

After the frenzied activity of the spring, moving, giving birth, the hectic circus of the trial, the lazy summer seemed still and dead by comparison. The album was practically finished, except for a few touches of studio magic to come during mastering, with a projected release date in the autumn. Apart from a few festivals in Europe, we had no plans to tour except nebulous tentative schedules for the autumn. In short, for the first time in over a year, my time was completely mine alone, and I couldn't stand it. We were all bored, and we were starting to take it out on each other.

Pacing back and forth across Maddie's kitchen, I sighed and wrung my hands like a Victorian heroine, generally making a nuisance of myself and getting in everyone's way.

"Would you _move_?" snapped Emma testily when I blocked her path from the fridge to the pot of vegetables simmering on the stove. The weather had grown prematurely hot, and tempers were short. "If you're going to sulk, at least stay in one place and sulk, instead of constantly getting under my damned feet!"

"Emma!" admonished Beth sharply, looking up from the magazine she was paging through.

"No, she's right. I'll take my sulking somewhere else if it's interfering with her sulking," I tossed back pettily.

"Go back in your fucking room!" snarled Emma. "But put your fucking headphones on, cause if I hear Radioshack's _Yes, TRS-80_ one more time, I'm going to rip your stereo out of the fucking wall!"

"Thom Eboracum is a fucking lyrical genius, and fuck you if you disagree!"

"I can't take either of you another minute!" exploded Beth, slamming the magazine shut, leaping to her feet and flouncing to the door. At that moment, the phone rang, the line that connected to Beth's apartment blinking like a little beacon on the switchboard. "Wait! I'll get that upstairs!" warned Beth, but I had already picked it up.

"Hullo?" Beth shot me a panicked look and darted over towards me, gesturing wildly and trying to seize the receiver from me.

"May I please speak to Elizabeth?" asked a strangely familiar, clipped British voice.

"Elizabeth?" I teased. "Is _Elizabeth_ here?"

"Give me that!" hissed Beth, lunging at me, but I held the phone away from her, just out of her reach.

Emma's ears pricked up, forgetting her earlier annoyance at me as she mouthed "Who is it?"

"It's a boy!" I whispered back, pressing my hand over the mouthpiece so that the caller on the other end could not hear our muffled exchanges.

"Give me that or I'll..." threatened Beth, diving for the phone and eventually relieving me of it. Taking a moment to recover her dignity, she tossed back her hair and took a deep breath before purring into the phone. "Hullo..." A throaty laugh and her eyes sparkled. "Oh, nothing, sweetie. Just Kate and Emma being beastly."

"Beastly," noted Emma, pulling a horrible face. I sniggered madly as Beth aimed a flick of her wrist at her without losing a beat of her conversation.

"I'm sorry, darling. I can't hear you. I'm just going to go upstairs. Hang on a minute."

Glaring at us both, Beth pressed the hold button, then placed the receiver back on the hook, shooting Emma an admonishing glance before flouncing off up the stairs to her own apartment.

As soon as Beth was out of sight, Emma tip-toed over to the phone and picked it up. "What are you doing?" I demanded. Emma placed her finger to her lips, skilfully pressing the button for Beth's line and releasing the hold button noiselessly. "No! Put that down!" I hissed, but Emma shook her head. Barely daring to breath, I strained my ears to catch a snippet of the muted conversation but all I heard was the drone of electronic voices without being able to catch any of the words.

Emma rolled her eyes dramatically, miming exaggerated conversational facial expressions. Suddenly, she paused, then slammed down the phone, darting back over to the stove, innocently stirring the vegetables she had been sautéing. From upstairs, there was the sound of a bedroom door slamming, then Beth's feet clattered down the stairs.

"I'm going out. I'll be back... whenever," she called back gaily, and then the front door slammed shut with an air of finality.

"Who was it?' I asked suspiciously, turning to Emma.

"I don't know," she fretted, fussing over her vegetables, then padding over to the table to sit down beside me on the bench, the quarrel of a only few minutes ago completely forgotten. "She didn't call him by name. She called him _sweetie_ and _darling_. I mean, who does she think she is? Patsy Stone?" The tone of her voice dripped disgust. No matter whom Beth dated he was never quite good enough to suit Emma's standards. "His voice sounded _so_ familiar, though."

"I know. It's bothering me. I knew it, but I just can't place it," I corroborated.

"You don't think..?" Emma suddenly looked up, her face ashen and grave. "No, she wouldn't be that mad."

"What?" I asked, with a sickening sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Say it, Emma."

"You know who it sounded like? It sounded like Gary."

I stared at her in shock. It could have been; I simply hadn't heard enough of the voice to tell accurately. "You don't think... No!"

The front door banged and we both turned around simultaneously. "Beth!" growled Emma sharply.

"No, sorry, it's me," announced Maddie as she swept into the room. "Mmm, what is that, Emma? It smells amazing. Oh, and you just have to see what I got at Sam Ash today..." Digging in her bag, she pulled out a star-shaped tambourine covered in iridescent glitter. "Isn't this fantastic?"

"You'll look like William fucking Gallivant," I teased.

Maddie laughed and tried to drape the thing over her head, but Emma was insistent. "Maddie, have you ever talked to Beth's mystery man on the phone?"

Cocking her head to one side, Maddie rattled the tambourine distractedly as she thought. "I might have. There's a British bloke that's left messages for her once or twice."

"Did his voice sound familiar to you at all?" Emma probed.

"Oh, I don't know Emma. All English accents sound alike to me. Why?"

"I think she's seeing Gary again," Emma accused indignantly.

Maddie stopped in mid-stride, her jovial mood rapidly deflating. Beth's affair with Gary was something that she never directly mentioned to any of us, though none of us had the slightest doubt as to her feelings on the matter. "She's not seeing Gary again," she dismissed quickly, far too quickly, picking up a sponge and starting to obsessively wipe down the countertop where Emma had been chopping vegetables. "And how many times have I told you that I don't care if you cook in my kitchen, but if you make a mess, please clean it up?" Her voice was tight, and very controlled.

"Do you know that for a fact?" continued Emma. 

"No, I don't know it for a fact," snapped Maddie.

"Gary has a very distinctive voice," I ventured tactfully. "I mean, how many times has Maddie listened to those AbSynth records over her life? She'd know if Gary Goode was on her phone. I doubt it was him, Emma."

"I can't tell if it's Gary or not, but can you say beyond a reasonable doubt that it's not?" Emma was unable to let go of the thread, although Maddie was clearly growing annoyed at the line of questioning.

"I don't want to talk about it any more!" Maddie snarled, whirling on Emma. I rarely saw Maddie lose her temper, and quite frankly, she scared me when she did. "If Beth wants to do something so fucking... pathologically _stupid_ , well..." Her voice trailed off as she regained control of herself. "She's not seeing Gary."

Carefully excusing myself from the conversation, I crept away and padded upstairs, fearful of being caught up in a row between Maddie and Emma. I hadn't _thought_ it sounded like Gary at the time, but the voice had been so muffled, and he'd said half a dozen words to me. As I folded myself up into a little ball in the centre of the bed, my eyes swept around the room, coming to rest on a foreign article of clothing - the silk shirt that Damien had been wearing at the Tribeca warehouse party.

Walking over to the chair, I picked it up and held it to my face, rubbing the soft silk against my cheek. It still smelled like Damien, boy-sweat and a slight hint of turpentine or oil paint that seemed to cling to all his clothes despite washing or dry cleaning. He smelled like sweat and hard work, wholesome and honest, I thought to myself, then giggled at the thought of how outraged Damien would be at the idea of his name and the word 'wholesome' being used in the same sentence.

With a twinge of loneliness, I wrapped it about my shoulders and retreated to my desk, digging through my address book until I found Damien's business card, slightly dog-eared from being carried around in his pocket for so long. For a moment, I stared at the front of it, contemplating calling his service, then turned it over and stared at the back, at the unruly handwriting of his cell phone hurriedly scrawled across it. Damien's electronic security blanket - I'd never actually called him on it, preferring the anonymity of the bland automated voice on his machine. But at this moment, feeling alone and confused, I needed to talk to him, to hear his voice, to be drawn into his personality like iron filings towards a magnet.

Picking up the phone, I took a deep breath and dialled the number.

"What the hell do you want?" bellowed Damien's voice irately across the transatlantic satellite system. "Fuck me!"

"I'd love to," I purred back, more amused than daunted by his outburst.

"Kate!" His voice brightened noticeably, though the noise in the background nearly drowned him out.

Everything I'd wanted to say to him evaporated in the warm, blissful feeling of actually having him, halfway across the world, stopping in his tracks to talk to me.

"Bloody hell! No! Get the marching band out of here! They don't come in until after the chorus!" he exploded, shouting directions at his unseen companions. "Wait until the _na-na-na_ chant comes in!"

"Marching bands? I'm afraid to ask."

"Keith, back the fucking car up! We're going to have to shoot the entire fucking scene over..." Suddenly he remembered the phone pressed to his ear. "Hullo, Katie. I'm sorry, this video is running over budget and over time already. I curse the day Keith and Alex ever got me into this! At least Keith had the courtesy to actually show up. We've been waiting for Alex all fucking day and he's never turned up, curse that fucking Evesham woman. Fine, he just won't be in the video, then! _Oh!_ Alex!" he cried out suddenly, as if speaking to a person who had just turned up a few yards away from him. "Nice of you to finally join us. What the bloody hell is that on your head?"

My heart stopped in my chest. Alex Jones? No; I was over him. That was _not_ a twinge of regret that I felt there. Well, actually, yes it was. But it was not regret over Alex - it was regret that I was stuck in New York by myself, with nothing to do, and not there with them, part of whatever wild scheme it was that Damien and Keith and Alex had concocted.

Damien roared with laughter at something Alex had muttered in the background, though I was unable to catch it "We're going to number one with this, and if you doesn't want to be part of it, well, then, I'll go on Top of the Pops without you! You'll see - I'll be a pop star yet," he boasted.

"That's always been your dream, hasn't it? You just started your career in the wrong field," I teased.

"Damned right!" He paused to shout at someone else on the set. "No, not the nurses - first the old men, _then_ the nurses."

"Sounds like a circus over there," I observed. "You're busy. I'll call back..."

"No!" he thundered. The volume of his reply reassured me. "No, not you. You stay where you are. Kate!"

"It sounds like you need to go."

"I do. But don't call me back." My heart plummeted like a stone. "Get on the next fucking plane and get over here. I'll pay for it. I'll tell my PA and have him book you the next available flight. He'll take care of it and have someone meet you at the airport."

My heart soared straight up like a rocket, through the stratosphere and into outer space. There were no arguments about touring obligations, or conflicting interests or schedules - Damien simply snapped his fingers and it was done, arranged for me and delivered in a neat package.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," I assured him, so happy I could barely speak.

A few minutes later, as I was running around my apartment, throwing a brief assortment of clothes into a suitcase, my phone rang. "Is this Kate Gordon?" asked the well-groomed voice on the other end.

"Yes..."

"I'm Dale Johnson, Mr. Hearse's personal assistant..."

"Nice to meet you, Dale," I stuttered, then immediately realised how stupid it sounded to say that to someone I hadn't actually met. "Or, rather, talk to you."

"Well, it's nice to finally talk to you, too," responded Dale, actually sounding rather charmed. Then again, considering the way Damien usually railed at him over the phone, it was probably a relief for him to be spoken to like a human being. "I have heard a great deal about you from Damien. Or rather..." he corrected himself, sounding a bit embarrassed at the breach of formality. "I have facilitated Mr. Hearse in making several plans involving you..."

I laughed, deciding that I rather liked the long-suffering Dale. "It's OK, Dale, I'd be offended if he hadn't spoken to you about me."

"Well, he has..." Dale stuttered, then wisely changed the subject. "I have booked you a flight on Virgin Atlantic for this evening. Can you be at Kennedy Airport by 6pm?"

Glancing at my watch, I answered "Easily."

 

I felt like royalty as I stepped out of the first class cabin into the anonymous terminal of Gatwick. No matter where in the world you went, airports always looked exactly alike, ugly lumps of steel, glass and concrete hastily thrown up during the late 60's, every inch the antiseptic nationless quarantine zones the duty free customs suggested. Standing at the gate was a uniformed chauffeur holding a sign labelled "Gordon," who promptly relieved me of my suitcase and escorted me to a sleek black car. Settling back into the lush leather seats, I felt strangely like a child, being whisked from one city to another.

Rather than dropping me at Damien's converted warehouse on the South Bank, the car crawled into the city, depositing me outside a generic looking office building. "13th Floor," the chauffeur informed me, noting down the time of arrival on a clipboard, and then letting me out of the back of the car, handing me my suitcase. If he expected a tip, he didn't wait around long enough to actually collect it, immediately withdrawing into the car and zipping off, leaving me baffled on the pavement.

13th Floor? Well, that was typical Damien, I observed, studying my reflection carefully in the mirrored elevators swooshing me up into the heavens. Glass doors, a tastefully muted grey and purple waiting room with a couple of prints of Damien's earlier work on the walls... no, wait. Those weren't prints, I realised with a shock, moving in closer to get a better look.

"Hullo! You must be Kate... " greeted a familiar voice from behind me. I turned to see a harried young man with blond hair sitting on top of a receptionist's desk, trying to balance a telephone on each shoulder as he tried to empty packets of cream and sugar into a cup of coffee. This could only be Dale, though he was far younger and far better dressed than I would have imagined. "You can go straight in - he's expecting you," he directed, gesturing backwards. "Oh, I'm sorry. You must still have your suitcase - you can leave it here with me." Hearing voices from inside the inner sanctum, for a moment I was afraid to go in, but Dale seemed non-plussed, waving me in distractedly before returning to his phone conversation. "No, I'm afraid that's simply _not_ an acceptable figure. Mr. Hearse is a very busy man, and..."

Leaving my suitcase by the desk, I padded in, hoping to find Damien alone, but walking in to what could easily have been an impromptu meeting in a Wall Street investment banking firm, had it not been for the presence of Damien, his hair sticking up at alarming angles and his feet up on the desk, strewn with papers and littered with videocassettes and computer discs.

"Katie!" Damien's face lit up when he saw me, and he swung his legs down off the desk, gesturing for me to come over to him. I lent over to demurely kiss him, but he caught me around the waist, toppling me into his lap. "This is Kate," he explained perfunctorily to the businessman opposite him, a tall, middle aged man with short, curly dark hair and immaculate clothes. "She's a pop star."

"Is she, now?" The businessman looked me up and down, his voice clearly dripping with contempt. I bristled, but Damien nuzzled my ear with his nose affectionately. "Well, Damien, it's been a pleasure, as always, but I can see you have better things to do with your time right now. Have your assistant call my assistant when you are ready to sell me some more of your work." Turning around, he gestured to the other suit in the room and made some sort of cryptic signal.

"Call me! We'll do lunch!" roared back Damien as the pair of them prepared to leave.

"Of course. And Damien... would you please come up with something for the Millennium Dome Committee? Sketches, ideas, a proposal - anything! You don't know the strings I had to pull to get you that commission, now please do not disappoint me."

Damien spread his hands wide, palms open, his mouth twisted into a knowing grin. "Charles, have I _ever_ disappointed you?"

The businessman - Charles, I assumed - turned around and fixed Damien with a piercing stare, raising one eyebrow meaningfully, but not replying, before stalking from the room, his sycophant in tow.

Damien turned back to me, smirking smugly. "Hi," he cooed, rubbing his nose against mine, then suddenly noticing my clothing. "You're wearing my shirt," he observed. I nodded. "That's not allowed. You do understand I'm going to have to take it back from you, even if that requires the use of force."

I grinned hopefully. "That's what I was counting on."

As he was reaching for the buttons, Dale breezed into the room, depositing a stack of messages onto the desk. "You shouldn't tease Mr. Suuchi so," he chastened. "You should have told him about your plans for your MRI scans." My face flushed at the mention of our illicit afternoon of cramped and awkward sex inside the coffin-like tube of the MRI, trying to lie perfectly still with him inside me, so that the image wouldn't blur, praying that I would not dry up, or Damien lose his erection as freaky electronic noises whirred and droned all around us. Then again, knowing Damien, simply the idea that he had been having sex inside a giant camera had made him stay hard.

"What, so he can run around and tell everyone what I'm working on so he can claim responsibility for all my ideas, in fact my entire career yet again? I think not!" grumbled Damien. "Bloody thorn in my side. Always coming around here poking his nose in my business. I suppose he fancies himself a sort of modern day Renaissance patron of the arts. I bet Michelangelo didn't have to put up with this sort of thing."

"Actually, Michelangelo had to put with lots worse," I reminded him. "Pope Julius II, who commissioned the Sistine Chapel, used to get up on the scaffolding to yell at him."

Damien roared with laughter. "One of the Borgias, wasn't it? Oh yes, I definitely think that's how Charles pictures himself."

"Michelangelo had the last laugh, though. He painted the pope being thrown into hell in the Last Judgement," I pointed out.

Damien's eyes flashed with mischief. "Now, there's an idea. I wonder if I could find a way to take his measurements for a vitrine without his noticing... Charles Suuchi preserved in formaldehyde. I'd win another Turner Prize for that, I bet."

"Don't even joke about that, Damien," warned Dale sternly. "He does pay the bills at the end of the day, after all."

Rolling his eyes, Damien picked up the messages, skimmed through them, then deposited them straight into the trash. "Dale, how would you like to take a very long lunch, preferably two hours or more?"

Dale looked back and forth between Damien and I until I winked and waved mischievously. Dale smiled. "Actually, I have an overwhelming urge to go all the way back to Stoke Newington for lunch today. Will that be acceptable?"

"Get out of here!" growled Damien, already beginning to clear a patch on his desk and unbuttoning his trousers.

 

Life with Damien was a constant swirl of colour and activity, teetering on the edge of complete chaos, through which he charged like a headstrong bull, leaving his personal assistant, his accountant and his agents to clean up the mess. Yet for all illusions of disorder, I could tell that he never quite lost control, flirting with anarchy as if locked in a sweaty tango with a black hole, but maintaining a masterful sway over the events in his life.

"One must be chaotic in one's personal life, so you can be ordered in your creative life," Damien told me with a facetious wink as he managed to scrape himself up to go to a business meeting at 9am after an all-night drinking binge that had lasted until at least 4am.

"I always thought it was the other way around," I warned, but Damien just shrugged.

"Details, details..."

"I've got a present for you," he called out as he bounded back upstairs, returning home from the mysterious meeting.

"What is it?" I blinked blearily.

"Surprise. Come down and see." Grabbing me by the hand, he pulled me out of bed and pushed my shoes towards my feet, insisting that I follow him downstairs.

As I got down to the garage, I saw a flat-bed truck blocking the entrance to the street, but rather than being annoyed by this, Damien danced up to it and shouted at the delivery men, who were attempting to roll a car down precarious treads off the back of the truck and into the drive.

"Do you like it?" asked Damien, grinning as he practically hummed with excitement.

"Like what?" I looked around, confused. The only new thing I could see in the garage was the car, a Mini Cooper brightly painted with jaunty coloured spots in psychedelic patterns.

"This!" Pointing at the car, Damien obtained the keys from one of the delivery man, tipped him a large note, then handed the keys to me. "You're always complaining about taxis, so I got you a car."

As I stared at the Mini, slowly recognising the spots as one of his distinctive paintings, the realisation dawned. "Oh no. I can't accept this. I'm sorry, Damien, I can _not_ let you give me a car. It's too much..."

"Nonsense. Take it. I want you to have it."

"But how much did you pay for this?" Something in the back of my head rebelled at the idea of expensive presents from men, especially men I was sleeping with.

"Not a penny. That's the brilliant part. They gave it to me. I just painted the spots on it. Free publicity for both of us." He grinned at his own cheek. "Don't you like it?"

"It's beautiful," I conceded. "But I can't let you give me... a _car_."

"OK, if that's how you feel. I'll keep the car, and just give you the use of it." His grin grew even more cheeky. "You can pay me back by driving me around in it, if you feel too guilty about accepting gifts from gentleman callers."

"Oh! I should have known you had an ulterior motive," I laughed as I let him persuade me into the drivers seat. It was a beautiful car, the kind of cheerful 60s aesthetic I genuinely loved.

"Come on, let's go for a drive. How about Hampstead Heath? I'll buy you lunch at the Spaniards Inn."

It was so seductively easy to just lie back and be organised, waking at the first insistent bleat of Dale's endless calls, ordering food to be sent up from the restaurant downstairs, letting the maid that came twice a week tidy away the ordinary messes of our day to day lives.

Arm in arm, the two of us cut quite a swashbuckling figure through the frenzied London nightlife, charming, beguiling, or sometimes simply inspiring outright brute jealousy with my looks, his talent and the devastating combination of both of our brains. This was the life I'd always dreamed of having as a child, smash hits clinging to the charts with almost psychotic tenacity, and a witty companion at my elbow, guiding me with ease to the upper echelons of the intoxicating worlds of culture and class. It wasn't even that Damien had money, though I slowly came to realise how much from the sheer casualness with which he acquired cars, clothes, even property with no more attention to the price tag than he paid to the price of taxis or expensive dinners. It was more that Damien had access to a group of people who weren't just mere celebrities, musicians or artists, but the kind of people who were gatekeepers to what was even considered art or culture, or worthy of attention to start with. I wasn't just mesmerised by _him_ , I was drawn in to his entire world.

 

As spring turned to summer, I had become embedded in his flat, as he had become embedded in his my life. Although I had to admit that I didn't have the slightest interest in football, I nevertheless found myself accompanying Damien to the Groucho for a private gathering of the inner core of regulars to watch the World Cup. A quick once-over of the crowd revealed an assortment of the most unsavoury characters and smattering of bored girlfriends getting quickly pissed as they practised yelling disorderly commands at the wide-screen television. Much to my dismay, in the centre of the room, William Gallivant and Patsy Bedsit sat ensconced like king and queen of the entire gang. Muttering a few excuses to Damien, I helped myself to a large vodka tonic and immediately bolted into the adjoining room before the pair could spot me.

This was the only part I didn't like about my new lifestyle - the occasional forced and put-on display of feigned laddishness staged to convince themselves that they were not really idly rich tastemakers, but members of some vital and creative working class. Football? I'd rather spend the afternoon discussing the auction price of Lucian Freuds with Charles Suuchi, thank you kindly.

So this was what the snooker room looked like. I'd never actually seen it during the day, let alone completely deserted, looking sadly forlorn, like a classroom without children. Picking up a pool cue, I wandered over to the table, flicking the balls lazily with my hands. I felt like the last human on earth, wandering through the ruins of society, looking at a game half played and abandoned in the midst of some terrible disaster. But it wasn't a disaster - it was merely some sporting event that had the power to drag even these, the most leisured of the professionally idle, from their diversions.

For a moment, I wandered what it would be like to be the last human left alive - would I still bother trying to create something great or lasting, or would I simply take the stolen moments as they came, finally having the time to sit down and do all those things I'd meant to but never had the chance? Like learn how to play snooker...  for ages, Alex had teased me about my inability to master the finer points of the game, but I simply didn't have the time to loaf around, fine-tuning my technique. 

It was only hand-eye co-ordination and a bit of physics, after all, wasn't it? Hell, given a few hours alone with the table, I could probably learn to play well enough to pass. In fact, I planned on soundly thrashing Alex's arse some day. Some day. Well, if I ever saw him again, I'd have to give it a shot, I reflected, retrieving the balls and setting them up in the triangle formation, as I'd seen the boys do hundreds of times. A resounding crack of wood against enamel, and the balls scattered, shooting every which way, a rainbow riot of colour, and I suddenly realised just how much being in London, especially being at the Groucho, reminded me of Alex. Well, not so much of Alex, but of how good things had once been between us. If I thought about it carefully, well, I'd been with Jeremy and he'd still been with Mimi, after all. Had those really been the best days of our friendship? It seemed hard to believe.

Leaning over the table, I squinted like a pro and lined up a shot, aiming carefully at the ball in the corner, when suddenly I felt a hand brush up my thigh, pushing underneath my dress and softly fondling my buttock.

"Come on, Damien! If you make me miss this shot, I'll kill you," I swore, without bothering to even turn around. Dammit, I was going to master this game if it killed me. With the usual habitués of the snooker room glued to the football game about to start on the telly outside, now was my chance to have the place to myself, with no one to sneer at my lack of experience as I honed my skills.

"You're missing the game," he informed me.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Whatever gene it was that made otherwise rational and sensible human beings turn into slavering nationalistic fiends at the sight of a black and white spotted ball, I was simply missing it. "I'm not really that interested in soccer, Damien," I finally confessed, closing first one eye then the other as I eyeballed the shot, measuring angle and distance with the cue.

"It's not soccer! It's football!" protested Damien in an outraged tone, slapping me heartily on the rump.

"Whatever. It's a bunch of men running around the field with a ball, and whichever one gets the ball first, he's clever." Tapping the little white ball lightly with the cue, I sent the little blue ball spinning into the appropriate pocket.

"Heresy!" bellowed Damien, then whistled appreciatively at the results of my shot. "You're actually getting the hang of that." Leaning even closer behind me, he looked over my shoulder, wrapping one arm around my waist, then started to rub up against me gently.

"What are you doing?" I asked in a playful tone as his fingers started to move lower, searching between my thighs. "I thought you couldn't miss your game for the whole world."

"Mmmm," concurred Damien. "Still time. Just. Come on... quick one?" he cajoled, moving more urgently. I could feel his penis stiffening between my buttocks, but as he nuzzled my neck affectionately I could smell the whiskey on his breath. We'd had a few before we even left home, but now he was clearly quite intoxicated. Alcohol, the testosterone of the laddish boys club atmosphere and the vicarious thrill of approaching battle seemed to have made him doggedly randy.

"Damien, stop it!" I gasped, glancing towards the door as I heard him unzip his pants. "There's got to be dozen people just outside that door!"

"Half of them are up at the bar ordering last minute drinks anyway."

"As if that makes a difference!" 

With sticky fingers, he pushed the lace of my knickers out of the way, letting his cock slide between my thighs. "I wish you wouldn't wear these bloody things."

" _Damien_!" I chastened, but it was a half-hearted protest. Slumping forward, I grabbed at one of the snooker balls, tightening my fingers around it reflexively as he pushed inside me. With a satisfied grunt, he started to stroke gently, holding my hips firmly with his hands, hoisting me further up onto the table to get a better angle. My breaths were coming short and fast now, as I lay with my cheek on the green felt, my knickers around my knees and my dress thrown back over my shoulders. _Please, let no one walk in now, oh what is he doing with the heel of his hand on my pubic bone..._ Trying to catch my breath, I relaxed slightly, concentrating only on the increasing pressure on my clitoris as he simultaneously thrust from behind and pushed rhythmically from the front. 

From the room outside, I could hear the chatter of the television commentary, mixed with the dull roar of drunk male conversation. Any second now, one of them was going to come in, was going to catch Damien fucking me like a bar room hooker on the Groucho Club snooker table. Hoping he would be quiet, I held my breath, barely daring to exhale, let alone cry out.

"Come on, Damien," called a voice from outside. "They're going to kick off shortly..."

"Just a minute!" snarled back Damien, his voice unnaturally strained. Come on, they _had_ to know what we were doing in here.

"Damien!" cried another voice that sounded suspiciously like... "Oh my god..." I looked up to see Alex Jones standing framed in the doorway, the colour quickly draining out of his ashen face.

"Just... a... minuuuaahhhh..." moaned Damien, so lost in his physical pleasure that he seemed not to notice the intrusion.

Alex stood, like a deer caught in the headlights, as if not quite sure whether to turn and bolt from the room or rush forward and physically separate the two of us. The orgasm that had been slowly building between my thighs evaporated as if sucked from my body by the accusing and reproachful look of horror and shock and envy plastered across his face. What a way to start the World Cup - walking into the snooker room and seeing the ex-girlfriend that ripped your heart from your chest, face down on the pool table, her bum in the air, being soundly shagged by your best friend.

With a contented moan, Damien shuddered slightly, then slumped forward against me, kissing my cheek tenderly then straightening up. Only then did he seem to notice Alex, still hovering in between the rooms like a ghost. "Alex, my boy!" Although I could not see his face, I could practically hear the twinkle in his eye. Apparently for Damien, half the thrill of public sex was getting caught.

" _Oh my god_ ," repeated Alex dumbly.

"Alex, you remember Kate, don't you?" introduced Damien obliviously, pulling up his trousers as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Feeling suddenly very whorish and cheap, I stood up awkwardly, pulling my dress down before Alex's eyes could linger on the patch of light hair between my legs. Where the hell had my knickers gone? Without another word, Alex whirled around if released from a spell and fled from the room.

"What the hell?" shrugged Damien, tucking his shirt back into his trousers and zipping up the fly. "Never known Alex to be such a prude before."

"Damien..." I sighed, with a reproachful look.

With a deep sigh, he looked towards the door. "Come on..." Reaching out, he took my hand and walked with me into the other room. A quick survey of the crowd, bellowing heartily at the television and waving around large glasses of lager, revealed Alex to be missing from their company. "Where's Alex?" he demanded loudly.

"Dunno. Went running in the direction of the bar, I think..."

Damien and I exchanged meaningful glances. An entire conversation flickered between our eyes in the space of a few seconds. His pride, my guilt. His suspicion, my worry, and then what could possibly even be the edge of jealousy in his glance, but suddenly it all cleared, and the blue depths of his eyes were troubled but unreadable. " _You_ should go talk to him. He's _your_ ex-boyfriend."

I opened my mouth to protest, but no argument emerged. Although I had always known that I would have to talk to Alex again at some point if I were to continue my relationship with Damien, this was not exactly the circumstance under which I would have wished to renew our acquaintance. There was so much left unsaid between Alex and I, but this had hardly helped matters, considering the incidents during which we'd parted.

My face burning with shame, I turned around and slunk from the room, pushing my way out into the deserted barroom. Alex sat at the end of the long bar, looking very much shocked and rather shattered, his face pale and his shoulders slumped.

"Alex..." I ventured softly, padding over to him. He didn't even look up from the bottle of brandy that he had helped himself to, as even the bartender appeared to be off in the other room, glued to the television. Next door, I could hear the roar of the party growing steadily louder, but the bar was oddly silent, with just the two of us. Taking the bottle from him, I slid into the seat next to his and poured a huge splash into an empty tumbler. _God knows I'd need it._ "Alex..." I repeated, as soon as I felt the fire of the alcohol restoring my courage.

Suddenly his head snapped up from his little ball of self absorption. "One question, Kate. One question!" he demanded, his huge brown eyes boring into mine. "How long has this been going on between you two?"

I knew what he was getting at - the story in the News of the World that had precipitated our last fight, the morning that he had called to find Damien sleeping in his bed, answering his phone. "Couple of months, give or take a week or so," I answered as gently as I could. "I hadn't seen anyone in nearly a year, and then I ran into Damien at an art opening in New York. It was just... it was just chemistry or something, I don't know."

"He's always fancied you. Always," Alex insisted stubbornly, trying unsuccessfully to sound calm and rational. "The first night he met you, he told me afterwards that if I didn't snap you away from Jeremy Kane, then he would. Every time he even came near you, he flirted incorrigibly. He..." Seizing the bottle back from me, he poured himself another shot and slammed it down, then stared at me piercingly, accusingly. "Do you love him?"

"Yes," I lied, almost entirely too convincingly for my own comfort. Wrapped in his little world of domestic tranquillity, Alex had no need to know of the doubt and confusion that dodged my feelings for Damien. From outside, there was a loud wave of mirth, and I could hear Damien's irrepressible guffaw leading the laughter.

Alex sighed deeply, staring into the depths of his shotglass. "I'm not sure which of you I'm more jealous of."

"Oh, don't even start with that," I threw back in his face. "You needn't tell me that you are not totally and completely besotted with Em Evesham."

Thrusting an accusatory finger towards me, Alex looked as if he were about to throw some caustic retort back at me, then simply shrugged and relaxed slightly. "I am. I'm not going to deny it. We just got engaged in February. We're very happy." It was my turn to stagger back as if hit by a blow. Engaged? I was ready for happy, even in love, but engaged? It sounded so final, so decisive, so...  quick. Something else flickered across his face for a moment as he saw my reaction. "But Kate..." He opened his mouth, closed, it, opened it again, and took a sip of brandy, as if mentally weighing whether to say something or not. As the noise of the crowd next door got louder, he lowered his voice even quieter. "Kate, I was not having an affair with her. I never slept with her when I was with you. You have to understand that," he finally whispered.

"I..." I sighed very quietly, almost under my breath. I had read so much from the letter Em Evesham had sent me soon after Alex's and my break-up - the innocent protestations, the aching apologies - that I had nearly thrown in the fire in a fit of anger, but then rescued and read and re-read until I'd practically memorised every line. It had tortured me for months, wondering if she had told the truth or lied to save her honour, but at that moment, as I saw the anguish in his face, somewhere inside me, I knew that it was true. I didn't want to believe it; I wanted to cling to my anger and my suspicions, but his eyes were huge with honesty. "She wrote me a letter, actually. Somewhere between that, and your story, and things Damien has let slip... I don't know what I believe any more."

"So you know, then?" Alex echoed, his voice quavering between disbelief and relief. "You know I didn't sleep with her. You know that I didn't lie to you."

"Even if you didn't sleep with her, that doesn't mean that you weren't having an affair," I snapped, suddenly growing angry. Any romantic or sexual attachments I may have felt towards Alex might have burned off long ago, but as soon as he mentioned the affair or whatever it had been, uncontrollable anger flared up inside. Anger at being lied to, anger at being abandoned, anger at being replaced, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball like a little girl and start screaming my head off...

"Kate, that's not fair," pointed out Alex, but his voice was nearly drowned out by another wave of laughter and shouting from next door.

I suddenly realised this anger had nothing to do with Alex, did it? I wanted to scream and rage against a man who'd lied to me and walked out on me, but the fear and the anger was much older than that. I couldn't have been more than about 11 or 12, because I remembered perching on a barstool in the pub, my legs kicking against the rungs, not quite long enough to reach the floor. Sipping at a soda, I'd watched my father sitting next to me, but his attention was focused away from me, towards a pretty woman on the other side of him, laughing, joking, _flirting_ , while I watched helplessly. 

We never told my mother about those late night stops at the pub on the way home from my piano lessons - that was the deal, and in exchange, I got to sit up at the bar, sipping my soda and feeling oh so sophisticated and grown-up and basking in my beloved father's undivided attention. Undivided, that was, until I realised that the reason for these clandestine nocturnal visits was not me at all, but the pretty stranger with the cloud of long, curly, light brown hair who worked behind the bar. That was when I got angry, that was when I got upset, but I had to sit quietly and demurely, afraid to even talk when all I wanted to do was scream and cry and throw things and scratch out my father's lying eyes...

"Kate, are you alright?" Suddenly, I stopped, his voice snapping me out of the strange trance of old, old memories I'd found myself falling into, and I looked wildly around the familiar bar of the Groucho Club as if seeing it for the first time. Dragging my mind back to the present, I stared up at Alex, realising that he had put his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look up at him.

"I'm fine," I insisted, shaking him off me and pulling away, wondering why the hell these memories were being dredged up now. What the hell did they have to do with Alex? Suddenly Dame Thornaby-Gore's voice echoed in my head _He is most definitely trying to punish someone, and I don't think he's even aware who or why._ Had I been doing exactly what I'd been accusing Tristram of? Replaying some psycho-drama in my own head, punishing Alex for something I wasn't even consciously aware had ever happened? My father had been using me as a cover for his affair, forcing me to watch helplessly while he split our family apart, but it had been years before I'd been old enough to realise what was happening.

"You don't look fine," he sighed, with a guilty air, looking out towards the other room as Damien's voice lead another wave of laughter. "It's obviously upsetting you, my being here. I'm sorry, I'll go."

"No, Alex!" I blurted out. "Stay."

"But..."

I didn't even allow him time to finish the sentence, afraid of what he might have been about to say. "I'm not upset. I'm over our break-up. Really, I am. Things were impossible between us, Alex. We couldn't have gone on like that - we would have ended up hating each other."

Alex smiled wryly. "I thought you did hate me. I wouldn't blame you."

I shook my head slowly. No, there were many emotions that I had felt towards Alex in my life, but the hate had burned off long ago. "No. I don't hate you."

"You recorded that horrible song about me to make me feel guilty..."

"Now, young man, as a bassist, you should realise that New Order are not horrible at all!" I huffed indignantly, suddenly recalling another drunken conversation in another part of Soho, a little over a year ago, though it seemed a lifetime away. "Peter Hook is a genius!"

Alex burst out laughing, the tension draining out of his face, the shattered, drawn look replaced by cheerful wistfulness, as I could see the memory of that happy evening at his flat dart across his eyes. "God, I miss you..."

"Alex..." I sighed. No, that part of my life was dead and gone. Alex was firmly banished to my past. I did not miss him. I _didn't._

"No, not like that, you silly goose." He grinned widely at the misunderstanding, flashing one of the toothy smiles that Damien could impersonate so keenly. "I miss you, not our stupid fucking failed relationship. You were my best friend in the world at one point. Remember the way we used to be able to just talk to one another? God, do you remember how easy it was, before all hell broke loose? Overnight, we went from being best friends to being... I don't know, enemies who happened to be sleeping with one another. You used to be the person I went to with all my problems, who would listen to me, whatever nonsense I came up with, and talk to me, and work through it with me - and then suddenly, that avenue was closed to me. I could no longer talk to you about my problems, because suddenly you _were_ my problems. And when we stopped talking... it all fell apart."

I winced uncomfortably at the unhappy memories. "God, _why_ , Alex? I mean, I just can't put my finger on where it all went so horribly wrong."

"I've thought about that a lot. Far too much for my own good, perhaps. I mean, for months after you walked out, I kept turning it over and over in my head, trying to figure out what went wrong. It wasn't until... well, until Em and I... Well..." He danced uncomfortably around the subject. "That I stopped trying to figure it out."

So it had been months between my breaking up with him and his getting together with Em? Now that _was_ interesting. Damien had lead me to believe that it was practically instantaneous. "Until you and Em got together?" I ventured curiously.

Alex grinned sheepishly. "Actually, Em was a great help, but only via e-mail for the first month or so. She always gave the best advice, even about you, you know. Too bad I never followed it."

"Months, did you say?" I, repeated not really paying attention to the rest of what he was saying.

He nodded, perplexed, then added with a wolfish grin "It took me a little while to woo her back from her then-boyfriend, but Em's a good girl, and she knows I love her."

"Boyfriend?" I reiterated, seemingly unable to do anything but parrot back the things I couldn't believe he was saying. This was painting a _very_ different tale from the one Damien had told me. "Em had another boyfriend?"

"Yeah, she was dating this American bloke. Named Tony, I think? Someone she met through her girlfriends back home in New Guernsey?"

"New Jersey," I corrected. God, Alex was clueless when it came to American geography. 

"Guy who ran an architectural refurbishment firm, something hideously boring like that. Used to be a musician - a bassist, in fact, she'd confessed. She always did like bassists best," he teased.

Em had had a boyfriend? Architectural consultant named Tony... used to be a bassist... fuck no. The world was too small. There was no way that Em Evesham could have gone out with Tony Sugarpussy, and me not known about it. Counting back on my fingers, I tried to piece together a time frame from my memory of the previous summer. "That little shit!"

"Who, Tony? Not really. But one must be charitable to the dispossessed," laughed Alex with a marvellous spark in his eye. Well, he was in love - at least Damien had got that part right.

"No, Damien!" I spat, starting to get slightly angry.

Alex grinned mischievously, as eager for gossip as an old hag. "Why, what has good old Hearsey done now?"

I shook my head, fuming, though I refused to give Alex the satisfaction of knowing what about. "He played me!" I muttered under my breath. I'd been lying around, sulking and dwelling on the past, and he'd dealt me as much of a slap as I'd given him to drag me kicking and screaming back to the present - and to him - by confirming my fears that Alex had left me for Em Evesham. Never mind that the slap had been a lie. If Alex and Em had not even got together until months later, that certainly put a different spin on things.

Then, suddenly, I was confused. Which was the truth and which was the lie? What had Damien told me that night at the opening, when he admitted that he had lied about Alex and Em's affair that last night I'd spent at Alex's? Or was the lie the original statement that Alex and Em had been having an affair? Which came first, the affair or the lie? The chicken or the egg? Did it even matter? The slight edge of drunkenness which was emboldening me enough to have this conversation in the first place now only seemed to be disorienting me. Another massive wave of laughter from next door drowned out my thoughts. Knitting my eyebrows together in a confused frown, I tried to make sense out of the long, tangled web of accusations and half truths Damien had told me about the two of them, but none of it seemed to quite add up. All along, had Damien just been covering up one lie with another lie, or had I, somewhere in there, simply ignored a truth I didn't want to hear?

With his long, elegant fingers, Alex pulled a cigarette out of his pack and lit it, drawing on it deeply before tapping it against the ashtray for emphasis. The noise and laughter next door had got so loud that he actually had to raise his voice slightly, to make sure I heard him. "Kate, as a friend, let me give you a word of warning about our friend Hearsey. Damien is, without a doubt, the cleverest person that I know - in fact, that I think I've ever met. He's intelligent, he's bright, he's sharp as a pin, but he is, undeniably, a complete pragmatist."

"What do you mean?" I probed, almost afraid to ask.

"A utilitarian."

"I know what the word means, but what do _you_ mean?" I demanded.

"Let me put it this way - when Damien wants something, Damien gets it, one way or another." He paused for a moment, allowing this to sink in. "Do you know the story of how Damien got his first show?" 

I shook my head, a little ashamed that I knew so little about the man I'd got so involved with so quickly.

"It's quite a famous story - it had already become a bit of a legend by the time I got to college. He and a bunch of his student friends got together and organised a show in an abandoned warehouse with some funds blagged from the local arts council."

Well, I knew that much - he'd shown me the very building itself the night we'd terrorised the London Design Museum.

"Somehow he managed to get a hold of some mailing lists from a couple of galleries, printed up a very slick, professional-looking catalogue and sent it off to all the important people he could find. And they came, perhaps because they weren't expecting this professional looking affair to be the work of a second year art student, or perhaps _because_ of it, because they admired his cheekiness. Was it effective? Certainly! Within a few months, not just our college, but the entire city was buzzing about it - and him. But was it a con? Well..."

"It's not a con at all!," I protested, actually incredibly impressed by the story. "He was just using his initiative to get something he wouldn't otherwise have been offered! And bloody resourceful of him, too."

"Precisely," imparted Alex meaningfully. "And that, my dear, in a nutshell is our Hearsey." Swallowing the rest of his drink, he clambered off the barstool and loped back towards the other room. "Anyway, from the absolute racket out there, I assume I'm missing a bloody brilliant game."

I stared after him, feeling heartened and relieved by his casual attitude, but awkwardly disquieted by his allegations. No, wait a minute. Why was I allowing myself to be swayed by Alex's accusations? Alex was the one with the agenda, not Damien - he was the one with something to atone or apologise for. Trying to shift the blame off onto someone of whom he was insanely jealous was _such_ a typical Alex tactic. Was he jealous of Damien? Of course he was - he had come straight out and admitted it a minute ago! _I'm not sure which of you I'm more jealous of._ What was that supposed to mean?

It seemed completely obvious - Alex was trying to assuage his own guilt by casting suspicion on Damien's honesty because _he_ was jealous _No, Alex Jones,_ I thought to myself. _That is just not on._

"Are you coming?" Alex called, pausing to glance back at me, just before he vanished through the door.

"Yeah, wait up, I'm just going to grab the rest of this brandy..." With my head whirling, I needed the fortification before I dealt with the Groucho, if they were being this rowdy this early into the evening.

Alex turned, to walk through, but as he looked out into the other room, an odd expression came over his face, somewhere between astonished and horrified. I pushed ahead of him, wondering what he was staring at so goggle-eyed. At first, all I saw was the waves of laughing faces, contorted in riotous laughter or outrage, but slowly I followed the gazes. There, holding court in the opposite corner of the room, perched on the arm of a sofa as if it were a throne, legs crossed, one hand raised in the air, daintily holding a cigarette at a rakish angle, the other cradling a nearly empty bottle of whisky in his lap, sat Damien, my Damien, completely naked, except for a tiny pair of purple lace knickers which looked remarkably like the ones I'd been wearing less than an hour ago. 

All around him, people were either collapsing with laughter or scandalised rigid, often both at the same time, as Damien, giggling, lapped up the attention. For a moment, I was simply shocked into silence. But in the next moment, all the irritation and confusion and suspicion that had swirled around my head in the aftermath of Alex's allegations - it all just drained out of me. I started to shake with laughter as I stared at Damien. Insane, maddening, infuriating, amazing, hilarious, attention-seeking and yet completely brilliant Damien. How could I ever stay angry at that irresistible smirk?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Damien forces Kate to deal with her ex-boyfriend Alex, and confront her fears about his new partner - and her former friend - Em Evesham.

"What do you mean, you accepted?" I snarled at Damien, every hair on the back of my neck standing up defensively as I poured conditioner on my head.

"I mean, I told Em Evesham that we would meet her and Alex for dinner at the Atlantic at 7pm tonight," replied Damien facetiously, making faces at himself in the bathroom mirror as he decided whether or not to shave. Although he was constantly in motion mentally, he was the laziest person I'd ever met when it came to his physical appearance, putting off shaving for days, until his nascent beard left my skin chaffed and sore. At least his hair was growing now, curling slightly over the tops of his ears and down onto his forehead, lending his face a softer, less belligerent appearance.

"Why?" I demanded, sitting up in the bathtub. "You _hate_ Em Evesham. I thought you said her photos was sentimental snapshots or words to that effect, if I remember correctly. And I quote: _The BritPop Linda McCartney_."

"Sentimental claptrap," corrected Damien. " But it's a free dinner at the Atlantic, and they do the best appetisers I've ever had in my life." He paused for a moment, scratching his stubble lazily. "When did I last shave? Tuesday?"

"Monday," I corrected, glaring at him. His stubble was a constant battle between us, but the more I harassed him to shave it regularly, the longer he let it grow. Taking the soap from the dish, I tried to work up a lather. "I'm not going, and that's final. I'm not going to sit at a table and make small talk with that woman. I'm just not doing it!"

"Kate, if I didn't know you better, I'd think you were carrying a torch for Alex Jones," teased Damien, bending over the edge of the tub to tickle me in the ribs.

"I am _not_ carrying a torch, I insisted defensively, batting him away, and losing the soap in the process. "I spent the entire World Cup sitting chatting amicably with him."

Damien guffawed condescendingly, dipping into the water, and retrieving the bar before handing it to me with a flourish. "One game."

"Whatever. I am fine with Alex, I have no problem with Alex, but that woman _lied_ to me." She had, hadn't she? Alex's words in the bar echoed strangely in my head. No, he had been lying to protect himself - or Em. He was simply jealous of Damien - that was the only mysterious message behind his warnings. And I was far more willing to believe that Em had lied, than I was willing to believe that Damien had told a half-truth in order to seduce me.

"You're carrying a torch," repeated Damien in a sing-song voice, making a children's rhyme out of his accusations. The bizarre thing was that there wasn't even a hint of jealousy behind his taunts - the look in his eyes was the same playful intellectual challenge that he used to bait me into arguments about philosophical precepts.

"I am not carrying a torch, and if I have to sit for three hours making small talk with Em Evesham to prove it to you, then I'll bloody well do it!" I snapped, holding my nose and sinking underneath the water to rinse the conditioner out of my hair with what I hoped was a dignified air of finality.

When I next broke the surface, Damien was standing at the mirror, calmly whistling as he slathered his face in shaving cream and started to draw the razor across his skin.

Despite Damien's best efforts to play the model boyfriend for the rest of the day, I sulked all afternoon, burying my nose in a magazine as he worked furiously on sketches and plans, resisting his efforts at playful banter, and greeting his attempts at conversation with a few hurt monosyllabic utterances. As the fateful hour drew closer, I tried to employ every trick of procrastination that I could think of, trying on two or three dresses before Damien forcibly prevented me from going back into the closet, but as the taxi pulled into Soho, I had still only succeeded in making us fifteen minutes late.

Staring at the door of the restaurant as if it was the door to a gas chamber, I balked and contemplated running off down the street, but Damien was right behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist reassuringly. "You can do it," he whispered in my ear, holding the door open for me and practically pushing me inside.

But as soon as I got in the door, my heart sank. From the vestibule, I could see clear across the restaurant, scanning the crowd lightly until my eyes fell upon Alex and Em already seated in a booth, smoking cigarettes and laughing over drinks. She'd cut her hair, I noted, and with that dark chestnut mane tamed into a chic flapper bob, she and Alex looked disconcertingly like spooky twins, the same gestures, the same drink, even the same angle at which their cigarettes protruded from their elegantly long fingers.

"No, Damien, I can't..." I stuttered, turning away, and attempting to bolt from the restaurant, but he caught me by the wrists. "Don't make me do this!' I begged, searching his unreadable blue eyes for a hint of mercy. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"You have to confront your fear," he hissed back, physically blocking my escape route. "You are still living in the past, and you can never get on with the future until you look the past in the face and prove you're not afraid of it."

"I'm not living in the past!" I insisted, an edge of hysteria creeping into my voice as I scanned the room for another exit. I could sense the argument rising in his voice, but if he bullied me I was just going to break into a thousand messy pieces all over the Atlantic's trendy designer furniture.

But rather than fighting, Damien shook his head slowly, cupping my face in his palms and pulling my gaze back to his. Smiling gently, he leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, wiping away the tear that I didn't realise had escaped my eye. "Then turn around and face it."

"I can't. I'm afraid of being hurt," I finally confessed.

He shook his head, running his hand along the side of my cheek, pushing an unruly tendril of blond hair out of my mouth. "They only hurt you because you're afraid. As soon as you're not afraid, they can't hurt you any more."

"That's bullshit, Damien. I'm not afraid of five ton lorries, but I know they can hurt me."

He smiled. "I'm talking about people, you silly goose. I'd never let anyone hurt you, I swear." The earnest look in his eyes actually lent the hackneyed cliché an air of nobility. I ventured a hesitant smile and he beamed. "Come on - I've never asked anything of you before, have I?"

" _Well_..."

"Apart from asking you to be sans knickers every time you're in my presence," he added quickly with a cheeky grin.

I blushed furiously, lowering my gaze to cover my smirk, and he pulled me closer, pressing me against his shoulder and wrapping his great hand around the back of my neck. "No," I conceded.

"No, I've never asked anything of you, or no you're not wearing any knickers?"

" _Damien!_ " He always had a knack of making me smile and blush, no matter how angry or upset I was.

"Now come on - they've already seen us."

I turned around to see Alex and Em smiling at us from across the room. "Oh god," I groaned. "I've no choice now, or it'll seem horribly rude."

Taking my hand in his, Damien squeezed it tightly as we picked our way across the room. "Alex! Em!" thundered Damien good-naturedly. Alex stood up, and suddenly there was much hugging and excess mirth. It was as if someone had yelled _Lights, Camera, Action_ and the tender, compassionate Damien that had been consoling me in the vestibule had been replaced with the consummate showman Damien Bloody Hearse. "What are you lot drinking?" he demanded.

"Long Island Iced Teas," supplied Em.

"They make one quite bold," completed Alex with a smirk. It seemed as if Alex had already had quite a few.

"Four more Long Island Iced Teas!" Damien bellowed at a passing waiter. There was a shuffle and a little awkwardness as to the seating arrangement, and suddenly I found myself squeezed in between Damien and Em. _Damn._ I'd been hoping to be on the end, so I could get up and walk away in a pinch, or at the very least, shielded between Damien and Alex, but this was intolerable. Looking around uncomfortably, I vacillated between Alex's and Damien's faces, looking for an excuse to enter their dialogue, but Damien had already seized control of the conversation. "Good God, Jones, did you see what a mess Beckham made of that play in the last quarter?"

"Oh mate!" exploded Alex, slapping his head and rolling his eyes to express his horror at the player's ineptitude. "I couldn't believe he kicked that Argentinean!"

"It was an outrage! He didn't kick him - the Argentinean player fucking ran right over him!"

I stared at my mate in total lack of comprehension. He was doing this on purpose, wasn't he? As the two of them disappeared into their male bonding ritual, I watched the rest of the evening go up in smoke. There went all hope of an articulate conversation. My drink appeared out of nowhere, and I sipped it gratefully, shivering slightly at how strong it was. Two of these and I was going to be under the table. Well, if that was what it was going to take to get me through the night, well, that's what I'd do. Bracing myself I took a deep breath and swallowed half of the drink in one gulp.

"You're growing your hair," said a female voice at my elbow. I turned to confront Em, staring at me cautiously, an apologetic smile dusted across her beestung lips.

"More like been too busy to bother getting it cut for a year," I shrugged disinterestedly. I had far more important things to worry about than getting my hair trimmed. Like obsessively remixing Charms songs. And sitting in a darkened room listening to Radioshack albums. And clipping my toenails. Why was I even here? I hated small talk.

"You should, though. You have such pretty hair," slurred Em. If she had slammed down over her half her drink in the fifteen minutes they had been waiting, she had to be more than slightly buzzed. Well, fine. Hair was a perfectly safe topic of chatter. I could do hair.

"I like your new haircut," I ventured politely. "It's very sleek. I nearly didn't recognise you."

Em laughed, running her hand over the back of her head. "That's what Tony said when he first saw it."

Tony? It was the second time that he had been mentioned in conjunction with Em - what if Alex hadn't been lying? "Tony? You don't mean, Tony Sugarpussy... as in Maddie's brother, Tony, used to play bass for the Jesus Sugarpussy…?" I probed in a low tone, watching for her reaction.

Em giggled slightly. "We don't talk about my ex-boyfriends in front of Alex or he turns into a jealous boy. But yeah, he mentioned that his little sister was in the Charms. I think it was one of the first things we talked about, because I'd done that video with you so recently."

Breathing a deep sigh, I took another gulp of my drink and sheathed my claws. "Actually, Alex sounded rather pleased with himself for 'wooing you away' from him," I offered.

"Did he say that?" Em turned to fondly glance at her boyfriend, now engaged in a play by play dissection of the previous afternoon's football game, squeezing his hand affectionately and rubbing him reassuringly on the leg, and the conversation paused awkwardly. Ouch, no, that was too close. I wasn't ready for that just yet. 

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my leg, gently squeezing my thigh in silent solidarity. Without missing a beat of his conversation, Damien touched me fondly, as if he were following both threads at once. But when I turned to confront him, he was still engrossed in the male bonding ritual.

Noticing my discomfort, Em bit her lip and changed the subject back to neutral ground. "So tell me about your baby. Was he a scary albino mutant baby or was he the beautiful little boy I told you he'd be?"

My heart wrenched at the memories of that early autumn afternoon we'd spent discussing my pregnancy fears. It seemed a lifetime ago, now. Sweeter, more innocent days, they had seemed at the time, but the remembrance of the lies she'd spun that day stung hard. "Well, if you know he's a boy, then you've probably already seen the tabloids with the photographs that the paparazzi have snapped of him in the courthouse, and you've already read that I don't have custody of him," I snapped, somewhat more harshly than I'd intended. Damien's hand started to rub slow circles on my thigh.

Em's face immediately fell, and she glanced down into her lap, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth for a moment. _Ouch, ouch, ouch._ I could see her biting her tongue already. "I'm so sorry," she finally offered, her grey eyes clouded with embarrassment at her slip. When her lower lip started to quiver, I felt like the biggest, meanest bully in the schoolyard for jumping down her throat.

"It's OK," I quickly added, reaching out and laying my hand on top of hers, wishing desperately that I could change the subject again. Bloody hell, was that an engagement ring? "I'm really sorry. I snap out of habit, I guess. I'm not really offended. I just don't like to talk about it much. I'm sorry if I..."

"Oh god, stop," blurted out Em. "Don't you dare apologise to me! I'm the one who keeps opening my mouth and sticking my foot firmly down my throat." She looked up, venturing a weak smile. "I mean, if these two are going to be lads and go on about football... Well, we've already crashed and burned talking about haircuts and babies, perhaps we should skip shopping before we come to blows."

"Hey, I'll kick your ass if you try to tell me that Harrod's has better china patterns than Liberty," I joked. For a moment, Em looked a bit frightened, but when she saw the smile on my face, she relaxed and allowed herself a laugh. "And shoes, man," I continued, trying to defuse the situation with humour. "Those trainers with the stripes could kick the butts of the trainers with the check marks any day."

"I'm sorry; I know nothing about trainers," giggled Em. "I can't play this game."

"As if I do?" I asserted, after another swig of the gorgeously intoxicating drink, then raised my leg slightly to display my customary Chelsea Boots. The world was starting to shimmer slightly, and nothing seemed to bother me. Why, here I was joking about trainers with Alex Jones' new girlfriend, my sworn enemy, yet, with Damien's fingers tracing figure eights on my knee, it didn't bother me nearly as much it should. "Come on, we've got to find something else to fight over. Beatles or Stones?"

"Erm, I don't know..." stuttered Em. "Beatles?"

"Stones!" I hollered. "Brilliant! Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte?"

"Charlotte Bronte," countered Em, beginning to get the swing of the game.

"Jane Austen!" I blustered. "Perfect! Slur or Mirage?"

"Oh, I think that's obvious," giggled Em.

"Oh dear, we agree on that one, then." I waited for the twinge of hurt, but it seemed to have dissolved with the ice melting at the bottom of my empty glass. "Bloody hell, my drink is gone. What do we have to do to get another?"

"In fact, let's get some menus - I'm starved," suggested Damien, finally surfacing for air after a ten-minute description of the talents of a particularly favoured football player. "I want those stuffed mushroom thingeys and I want them now! Waiter!"

"No! More drinks first!" cried out Em and I in unison. 

"Oh, damn! We just agreed on something else!" I cursed. For a moment, we stared at each other, then burst out laughing.

Alex and Damien exchanged perplexed glances as Damien flagged down another waiter and procured drinks and the appetisers he'd been raving about all day. 

"The omelettes are excellent here," recommended Alex with an arched eyebrow, so I ordered a goats cheese and spinach omelette with chips, and started in on my second Long Island Iced Tea.

"So how is your band doing?" asked Em, making conversation and catching up now that the ice had been broken. Then suddenly, she remembered something, her grey eyes flashing as she beat the table with her napkin, missing slightly and catching me in the arm. "And that reminds me! What the hell did you do to my video?"

"Amy tried her best to contact you!" I insisted, dodging the napkin she was attempting to drunkenly hit me with. "The _Ice Cream Saturday_ single was withdrawn after we released _Bizarre Love Triangle_ as a single so they wouldn't interfere with each other's sales. We needed a video for _BLT_ , but I couldn't film one as I was 8 months pregnant - so we just re-used some of your footage. Amy tried for nearly a week to get a hold of you, but finally she just went ahead on a partial confirmation from your agent. Blame your agent - or even Amy, not me!" I could not miss the reproachful look she shot Alex, and wondered what it meant. Alex blushed slightly and grinned back apologetically. "We're both up for awards for it, so you can't complain."

"I suppose not," sulked Em, pouting over the drink she was doing her best to demolish. "And won't that be an _up yours_ to the stuffy music industry when five girls get onstage to collect the award, with not a boy in sight!"

"You're assuming we win..." I laughed.

"Of course we'll win!" she snorted. "Who are we up against?"

"All Spice? Moronis Morris-Minor?" I suggested, rolling my eyes dramatically. "I mean, why do we have to segregated out into a separate category? Best female performance in a video, my ass!"

"Thank god they don't have a separate category for female directors," sighed Em.

"No, they just pass them over completely!" I ranted.

"Hey, I did a video for Slur, and they completely ignored me," interjected Damien, trying desperately to intrude upon a conversation in which he was now interested.

"Shut up and go back to talking about football with Alex," I tossed back without missing a beat. 

Damien turned to Alex, his mouth hanging open in feigned shock. "Do you see what I have to put up with from this shrew?" he asked with a wink. Leaning over, he started to tickle me gently in the ribs, but I batted him away. "Come on, you shall be a good Kate and a gentle Kate, and you shall be tamed as the falcons are..."

"The reason everyone ignored your video was cause it wasn't that good," I shot back. Alex leaned back in his chair, his eyes wide, steeling himself for the argument that appeared to be brewing.

Damien pulled an offended face. "It was better than the Mirage video. We had milk carts and Page 3 girls, and what did they have? Swinging saws and chewing gum?"

"One of these days, when you get around to actually doing something with the immense brain you obviously possess, then I'm sure you'll produce a video that will clean up at the MTV Awards," I told him without even bothering to turn around.

Huffing mightily, Damien opened and closed his mouth several times in mock indignation, but I knew him well enough to know he was still playing. "I have put only my talent into my work. My true genius I have saved for my life," he quoted, with a grandiose shrug. "And the sky is still green."

"Yes, dear, the sky is still green," I told him, rolling my eyes at Em as I reached over and patted him familiarly on the thigh. "Anyway..." Under the table, Damien had seized my hand and was slowly moving it up, toward his crotch. Well, fine. We were all a bit drunk, and it didn't bother me to sit there with my hand on his stiffening cock if he'd leave us alone to get on with our girltalk. "What really annoys me about the whole thing, is why a major label wasn't willing to put that much backing behind one of _our_ songs. It's almost like they didn't trust us as musicians and songwriters cause we're women."

"Perhaps it's cause your songs just weren't that good," suggested Damien cheekily. Withdrawing my hand, I elbowed him playfully in the ribs, then moved out of the way as the harried waiter deposited our food and yet another round of drinks onto the table.

Em leapt to my defence. " _Ice Cream Saturday_ was a great song! I was disappointed that it wasn't pushed more. And I really think that Kate has a point, considering some of the absolutely terrible singles that I've been asked to do videos for. Just thinking about photo shoots I've done... I've worked with a lot of record companies, and though, yes, they treat the boy bands like pieces of meat, too - it's different..."

"No it's not," protested Alex. "I mean, all it takes to get ahead in the music industry is long legs and a good haircut, really. Even the Beatles, as talented as they were - do you think they would have got out of Liverpool if they hadn't been four good-looking lads with mop-tops?"

"So why has there never been a female Beatles then?" I demanded.

"Yeah, and why has there never been a female Raphael or Leonardo DaVinci?" agreed Em, nodding emphatically. "Where is Shakespeare's sister?"

Alex and Damien both started to cringe, guiltily looking around for their food, but I was flying now. "And why is it the female members of bands that are seminal or influential always discounted? I mean, think about New Order, and how much Gillian Gilbert contributed to that band, but who gets the credit? Kim Gordon has probably written a good third of Sonic Youth's material, but who gets the credit?"

"Awwww, I fucking hate..." started Alex, but Em cut him off.

"Shut up!" retorted Em, uncharacteristically pointedly. Boy, was she drunk. But Alex shut up. "I _like_ Sonic fucking Youth."

Oh my god. Em fucking Evesham just swore. I didn't think I'd ever heard a curse word escape those perfect lips before. Was she drunk, or was she perhaps not the flawless little ideal I'd always believed her to be? I always liked people for their strengths, but ended up loving them for their faults.

"And what about Kim Deal? I mean, the Pixies were one of the most influential bands of the 80's, but no one even noticed her contribution until she put out a solo project that kicked the fucking asses of everyone else in the band!"

"I wanted to _be_ her when I was about 18," I reminisced.

"So did I," Alex attempted to add, but simultaneous sharp looks from Em and I quickly quieted him.

"You know - that's who the Charms remind me sometimes!" complimented Em. "I definitely hear a Breeders sound in there. I think you should do a cover of 'I Just Wanna Get Along' or something."

"Really?" I gushed drunkenly. Alex and Damien had stopped even attempting to join our conversation, and were attempting yet another half-hearted rehash of the previous afternoon's game. "You know, I heard the greatest story about Kim Deal. She was at a Throwing Muses show with a bloke, and he was flipping out cause Kristin Hersch was up there, six months pregnant, with her guitar strapped on over her belly, and the bloke was just like _'That's not very rock'n'roll'_ or something, and Kim turned around and said 'No, way, man - this _is_ the future of rock'n'roll!"

"So why didn't _you_ do it, then?" urged Em. "That would have been great to see! I would have been right up front jumping around and dancing!"

I paused, suddenly remembering the oddness of this situation. Here I was, laughing and joking and even _bonding_ with Alex's girlfriend, when a year ago... "No. You wouldn't have," I replied quietly, suddenly deflated.

"Yes I would," she insisted rather doggedly, then caught my train of thought. " _Oh_. Oh, Kate..." she sighed, tangling her fingers around her drink. The drunken bravado and giddiness had worn off, leaving us both feeling awkward and uncomfortable. Suddenly, she looked up, her grey eyes boring into mine. "Alex told me that you had read my letter." I nodded silently. "I don't think I would have had the guts to invite you to dinner with you if you hadn't."

"I nearly didn't come," I confessed quietly. "Damien had to practically drag me here."

Em smiled warmly, reaching over and squeezing my hand, leaning her head closer to mine, locking us in a private conspiratorial conversation. "I was so scared myself," she commiserated. "In fact, I admit that I was terrified."

"Terrified? But _you_ invited _us_!" After all of the time I'd spend being so jealous and so scared of Em, was it possible that she was as scared of me as I was of her? Was that what Damien had meant about facing my fear? _As soon as you are no longer afraid, they can't hurt you any more._ I'd spent so long building Em up into this huge, evil, heartless, boyfriend-stealing monster. How could she possibly hurt me if she was as confused and as vulnerable and human as I?

"I knew that we had to do it. And I'm glad that we did," she completed.

"You are?" Suddenly I was seeing her motives for the evening in a completely different light. I'd assumed that she was here simply to gloat over her triumph and rub her relationship with Alex in my face. What if this was a genuine olive branch offering of peace? I missed Alex so much sometimes that his absence felt like a hole in my life. Not even in the sexual or romantic sense - simply the way he had flipped nonsensical conversation back and forth with me in precisely the way he was chatting with Damien right now.

All that had stopped the moment I walked out of his life and out of his flat, cut out as if I'd cut off a part of myself. No, if I thought about it, it had stopped a long time before then, somewhere around the time that we'd stopped being friends and started sleeping with each other.

And Em? I'd wanted so badly to hate her, to make her into the enemy, but every time I spent more than five minutes in her company, I found myself drawn into her conversation, charmed by her calm, understated self-effacing elegance and class. When she smiled, I could see exactly what it was in her that Alex loved so devotedly - the sort of warm, radiant, pure smile of utter grace that a man would crawl through fire to see again. _How different from me,_ I couldn't help but think to myself. All I'd ever given Alex were arguments and difficulties and reasons to stay away.

Sighing deeply, she shook her hair out of her eyes and lit a cigarette. Three smokers and me - this was going to be hell. "It's good to confront your fears, sometimes. It buried a lot of..." she paused, picking her words wisely through the alcoholic haze. Her words echoed Damien's so perfectly that I wondered if he'd given her the same pep talk he'd given me during their brief conversation about the invitation. "A lot of doubts." 

"Doubts? What kind of doubts could you possibly have?" I exploded, then quickly lowered my voice back down to a whisper, passing under the rowdy roar of Alex and Damien's mirth. "Alex fucking adores you. You're obviously the best thing that's ever happened to him." I paused for a moment, surprised at how genuine the emotions pouring from my mouth were. "You are _so_ much better for him than I ever was, much though it kills my pride to admit that." 

This was so different from the scenes I'd often imagined during the past year, confronting Em Evesham and angrily accusing her of being a lying, boyfriend-stealing bitch. But it wasn't even so much Alex and Em's relationship that killed my pride; it was admitting that Damien had been right. For a year, I had been hiding in New York, afraid of London, afraid of Alex, afraid of the past, and in the process, cutting myself off from the only true community I'd ever felt outside of the surrogate family of my own band.

Em's lower lip started to tremble, as if she was holding back tears, her eyes growing slightly misty. "Oh god, Kate. And all this time I've spent being so afraid of you, and so jealous of you..."

"Jealous of me?" I stuttered. "Why?" She was the one who Alex loved; she was the one who had him now, and would soon have him forever. How could she possibly be jealous of me?

"Because you made Alex totally lose control, in this huge passionate way," she replied, very quietly, staring down at the remnants of her fourth or fifth Long Island Iced Tea. "I don't think I could ever instil that much passion in someone."

"Em!" I exclaimed.

"No," she insisted doggedly, drunkenly stabbing at the air with her cigarette. "Let me finish. When you and Alex were together it was like... It was like Alex was on drugs. It was like an addiction - he didn't see anything or anyone beyond that all-consuming, obsessive love for you."

"People with addictions are not very nice to be around," I replied dumbly, fighting back tears as the memories of my brief relationship with Alex came pouring back. "They act bizarrely, they lie, they fight, they wreck their own lives and the lives of everyone around them."

"He would have wrecked his life, wrecked his band, wrecked his career and thrown away everything he'd ever cared about just to have you," she informed me morosely, spearing one of the lemons in her drink with the stirrer.

"And we were miserable!" I insisted doggedly, fishing the lemon out of my drink and flipping it into hers. "Neither of us were happy. It didn't last. It _couldn't_ have lasted." I paused for a moment, trying to view the events of the previous year clearly through the haze of alcohol and distance. Em eyed me cautiously and guardedly from between her long lashes. What a turnabout this was from the first time we'd bonded over Alex and mutual sobriety in a trendy bar in New York. Except then she'd been lying and I'd been the one eyeing her suspiciously...

Or had it been a lie? I was about to open my mouth and tell her about how happy Alex and I had been off in our secluded hideaways, locked away from the rest of the world, but how things fell apart as soon as we were back in the real world... but what difference did it make, here and now? I didn't want Alex back as a lover. And right now, making peace with her, and reassuring her as to her relationship with Alex was more important than some little tiny observation about a time that no longer mattered. Was this what Em had felt, all those months ago, when she told me that she no longer loved Alex and did not want him back?

Biting my lip, I stared at her with a horror-struck expression as I slowly realised the truth. I'd been so bound up in my pain and anger I'd never even considered the other side of the story. "Oh my god, Em," I finally sighed, choking back the tears and resisting the urge to simply throw my arms around her neck and hug her. "I've been so wrong about you. I'm so sorry... All these months I've spent, thinking..."

Em's mouth puckered up into a tiny round O of denial. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no!"

"No, shut up!" I insisted, waving away her protestations. "I've been such a bitch and I was so mistaken, and..."

We were so drunk that we started talking over the top of each other, Em countering "Oh no, I don't blame you, I mean, had the situation been reversed, I would have leapt to the same conclusion..."

"I was so wrong. I mean, I thought that you were..."

"Oh no, I felt so guilty that you could possibly think that I..."

"No, I feel more guilty..."

Without even realising what we were doing, Em and I had taken each others hands, shaking them back and forth as we argued over who felt more terrible about the situation, practically on the edge of tears until we realised what we'd been doing, and then burst out into simultaneous spontaneous laughter, throwing our arms around each others necks and hugging each other as if we'd known each other all our lives, instead of being mortal enemies only a few hours previously.

There was a slight cough, and we turned to see Alex and Damien staring at us, Alex completely perplexed, yet Damien smirking in self-satisfaction. "Shall we go for after dinner drinks?"

The night stretched on forever, happy and high and perfect, as drink stretched into endless drink, the four of us stuffed into a booth in some watering hole in the West End, flipping back and forth running commentary, catching up on a year's worth of accumulated gossip. Drunk on the moment and way too many Long Island Iced Teas, I felt light and free, released from the cares and worries of the past year, yet, at the same time, I felt connected to the world, grounded and rooted in my small community of friends. Finally, I felt like I belonged somewhere, belonged to someone, back among the people that I loved, that accepted me for everyone and everything that I was.

Crawling back across London Bridge in a taxi, I watched the sun coming up over the river, snuggled in Damien's arms, feeling safe and warm and happy and very, very drunk. Shaking him slightly, I roused him from his catnap, staring deep into his booze-befuddled blue eyes. "Damien!"

"Huh? Whazza?" he slurred noisily, rubbing his eyes. He had actually begged me to go home hours ago, but Em and I had dragged him from club to yet another after hours club.

"Don't go to sleep," I whined. "I'm so happy right now, I just don't ever want tonight to end."

"Ah." Damien smiled through the liquor as if to say _And you didn't even want to go in the first place._

"Hold me... touch me... put your hands on me. I just want you to make love to me, over and over and over," I insisted, wriggling up against him and kissing him, snaking my tongue into his ear.

He shook his head slowly but purposefully. "Couldn't," he sighed with a disappointed edge to his voice.

"Tha's a shame," I sighed softly as the cab crawled along the South Bank to his warehouse. "Cause you know what?"

"What?" Damien was almost asleep again.

Despite the drunkenness, for a moment, I suddenly thought I saw everything quite clearly. For a tiny, shining second, I actually thought _This is it. This is what it feels like to be falling in love with someone. This is happiness. This is belonging. This is love._ But I shook my head, leaning back against his shoulder and sinking into unconsciousness.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kate Gordon tries to get to grips with Damien's art-world friends. But it's Em Evesham's AbSynth connections who deliver the gossip on the mysterious man that Beth Blair has been sneaking out of the house to see!

Damien had gone in to a meeting at his office, leaving me to sleep off the hangover I seemed to have developed perpetually whenever I was around him, with the promise that I would meet him for lunch. Feeling a bit faded, I appeared at the building around noon, standing waiting for the lift wrapped in a pair of dark shades, sipping a cup of tea that was doing little to revive me. Two artsy looking types, a man and a woman, breezed in off the street, deep in an animated conversation. Although I tried not to pay attention, slowly I realised that they were talking about Damien.

"He's lost his edge," asserted the man. "That's what I've read. Nothing new in ages. Just ghastly over-production."

"No..." contradicted his companion. "Apparently I was talking to my agent, and he was just over at the White Cube, and heard Jay Jopling talking to Suuchi about his new work, saying that it's going to be absolutely brilliant. All very under wraps and hush hush, of course, because he's become so paranoid that someone is going to steal his ideas..."

"Oh, they always do, don't they?" agreed the man. "Become so terribly paranoid. He's not being looked after properly, is he? It's this new girl, isn't it?"

"Oh yes. Charles is not happy about her. Not at all," rabbitted the woman. 

"Oh, Charles just has his nose bent out of shape because Damien turned his nose up at the idea of dating that Swiss artist he'd been cultivating," imparted the man. Suddenly my ears pricked up, straining to catch the conversation.

"Well, honestly, what was Charles trying to do? Set the two of them up so they could start some sort of artistic dynasty?" protested the woman.

The man cackled with laughter. "Can you see that? Some millionaires breed race horses, Charles would like to breed artists."

"Well, I don't see why not. Charles wants to control every other aspect of Damien's career. Well, tries at least," she added with a wry smile, that, if I wasn't mistaken, actually seemed a bit proud of Damien's legendary pig-headedness. "Have you met her? The new girl, I mean."

"No," sighed the man. Trying very hard not to crack up, I let my hair fall into my face, praying that they didn't recognise me. "She's supposedly an American pop star, isn't she? Something utterly horrendous. Not in his class at all."

"Oh, I don't know about that. She's supposed to be fantastically beautiful." I could feel the incipient blush spreading across my face. Beautiful? Well, that was nice of her.

"I don't know if that was the word used. Sexy in a common, tartish sort of way, I've heard."

"You're such a cynic, Michael. He's in love."

"Oh, rubbish, Sarah. Lust, more likely."

"Same thing when you're talking about Damien," she sighed. "No, I think he's in love. It's terribly romantic, really."

"What I don't understand is what can he possibly see in her? Well, apart from the obvious. But, I mean - what can they possibly have to talk about?"

"Who says they need to talk?" giggled the woman.

"Oh, the international language of L'amour - is that it?"

"We'll just have to be careful not to use any complicated phrases in her presence," she added cattily. "We don't want to alienate the poor girl. I'm sure she's perfectly sweet."

"Perfectly sweet?" squawked the man. "Did you hear about how they met? Apparently he won her sexual favours in a pool hall wager. She was involved with some other pop star, and Damien and the other pop star - oh, it's that one that he did the videos for! What was his name? Alan Johns or something? I really don't keep up with these things. Damien and the pop star had a wager over a game of snooker, and the winner got to take the girl home to bed."

I had to cover my hand with my mouth to prevent myself from bursting out in laughter, spitting tea across the lobby. Luckily, the lift arrived and they were distracted for a moment by the process of selecting their appropriate floor.

Noting the presence of an outsider, they lowered their voices slightly. "I'm sure you're wrong, Michael. I recall quite clearly that there was an article about them in the papers a few months ago. It was quite scandalous, you know."

"Are you sure it's the same girl? You know they all look alike to me, these pop stars," dismissed the man. "It'll end in tears, you know. It'll be Jeff Koons and Cicciolina all over again, just you watch."

Trying to make myself as invisible as possible against the back of the lift, I practically had to stuff my knuckles into my mouth to keep from completely cracking up. The lift lurched to a stop on the 13th floor, and I was about to push past them, when the two of them got off ahead of me, padding down the hall toward Damien's office. No... No, this was going to be too priceless. Hanging back slightly, dawdling along the hallway, I watched them walk into Damien's office.

I strolled back and forth along the hallway a few times, waiting to give them enough time to get into his office, then quietly tip-toed over to the office, sneaking in quietly through the door, and holding up my finger to my lips when Dale looked up, startled.

"I brought you something," I whispered, padding over to his desk and pulling a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun out of the bag I'd been carrying.

"Oh, that _is_ sweet of you," gushed Dale, looking genuinely pleased. Obviously, he spent so much time looking after Damien that he was not used to being looked after himself. "Damien's in with some friends right now, but I'm sure he won't mind if you..."

"I know," I flipped back with an evil grin, stalking quietly through the door. I was actually going to enjoy this. 

Engrossed in their conversation, none of them noticed me at first, the woman staring at Damien with the concerned look of a mother hen and the man, standing with his back to me, digging nosily through the papers on Damien's desk. With a reprimanding smirk, Damien retrieved the papers back from the man and pushed them into a desk drawer, gesturing for him to take a seat.

"We wanted to take you to lunch, Damien," insisted the woman in a haughty tone. "You're losing weight, so you're obviously not eating properly."

Damien sucked in his chest proudly. "Nonsense. I've been getting lots of exercise lately, that's all. The best kind," he added with a wink. "It's good for what ails you!" Suddenly hearing my footfalls, he looked over and caught sight of me, his face breaking into the most radiant grin. "Hullo."

Turning around in his seat, the man's face registered first recognition, then curiosity as to what I could possibly be doing there, then, as I walked over to Damien and planted a huge, wet, affectionate kiss on his lips, the embarrassed shock of realisation.

"Have you met my girlfriend, Kate?" ventured Damien obliviously, wrapping his arms around my waist and beaming proudly. "This is Sarah Martin and this is Michael Prendergast."

Both of them blanched, the woman flushing slightly pink, but the man turning the pale grey colour of the floor. "It's such a delight to meet you, Kate" interjected the woman - Sarah, I gathered - nervously climbing to her feet and shaking my hand limply. "We've heard so much about you."

"So I've gathered," I laughed back in a clinically polite tone.

She flushed an even deeper shade of crimson, settling back down onto the edge of her seat. The man - Michael, I assumed - looked as if he were actively willing himself down through the floorboards to the office below.

"They just offered to take us out to lunch. Do you fancy something to eat?" continued Damien, unaware of the tiny comedy unfolding before him.

"Oh, that would be perfectly charming," I asserted. "So long as you promise not to use any of those big words with the complicated syllables. You know how they intimidate me. I simply can't abide it." The woman swallowed loudly, staring intently at the floor. "But don't we have to meet Alan Johns at the Groucho Club for a snooker rematch?"

Michael coughed loudly, climbing to his feet in a blind rush. "We really should be going..."

"Going?" protested Damien. "You only just got here. And you still owe me lunch! You know I'll do absolutely anything for a free meal. If you don't ask me out to dinner, I don't eat!" Unable to control myself any longer, I burst out laughing, shaking uncontrollably with hysterics. Completely confused, Damien looked back and forth between me and his shamefaced friends. "Would one of you please let me in on the joke?"

Sarah shot me a panic-struck pleading look. Knowing Damien's mercurial temperament, I could only imagine how he would react to hearing his friends jealously disparaging him or his taste in women. "It's not important, dear," I assured him, patting him on the leg and trying to regain control of my laughter. "Shall we all go to lunch?"

Damien sulked for a few moments at the thought of being left out of something amusing, but forget his annoyance as soon as they started to bandy restaurant names about. Although Michael avoided my gaze outright, Sarah glared at me curiously, as if trying to appraise me. I returned her stare as coolly as possible, trying not to smirk, but I could see the suspicion lurking beneath her eyes. _Bitch_ , she was thinking to herself, but not without a murmur of admiration behind the accusation.

Lunch was actually quite pleasant after the rocky start, though I wasn't keen on the frighteningly hip restaurant they dragged us to, as if in compensation for the earlier misunderstandings. Although the food was tolerable enough, I would have preferred scooping up Indian Food with my fingers in the East End over trying to identify odd English vegetables in the latest brasserie.

After a glass of wine or two, Michael grew quite chatty, dishing the dirt on their fellow artists with the same gusto with which he ploughed into his food, delighting us with scandalous tales of dubious origin. Bearing in mind the half truths and fabrications he had repeated about Damien and I, I tried to listen to his stories with an air of disbelief, but I found myself utterly disarmed by the air of complete moral outrage with which he wrapped his most enjoyably insalubrious narratives, as if his entire conversation was prefaced with an unspoken wink. Well, at least it wasn't just Damien that bore the brunt of his gossip-mongering, I thought to myself, convinced that the dog that brought these bones was obviously studying us all keenly with his dissecting eye, eager for any morsel of a story that he would, no doubt, take along to the next dinner party.

Damien roared with laughter at every turn, playing along with the joke masterfully, letting slip enough of his own life to serve as fuel for Michael's imagination, then prodding him to reveal far more than he had intended.

I tried to keep my conversation spare, not wanting to make a fool of myself by wading in over my intellectual depth, as I had to admit that I had only a passing familiarity with most of the names they were discussing, but I was itching to join in when the conversation turned more general. Biting my tongue, I stared down at my potato based pastry like thing, my head bursting with comments I would not allow myself to make. Damien looked over, knitting his eyebrows concernedly and leaning his head towards me, as if silently asking if everything were alright. I nodded and tried to smile brightly, but he cocked his head to one side in disbelief. He had probably never seen me keep silent for this long.

The age-old conversation battled on, with Michael morosely insisting the glory days of art were long past, and that they were all living in the remains of former triumphs, Sarah doggedly asserting that they were all on the cusp of a major breakthrough and a new era, and Damien wisely maintaining a supercilious silence on the subject, only occasionally provoking the other two with an enigmatic phrase. I knew exactly what he was doing, stirring the two of them up debate the point without ever actually stating which side he was on, inciting an argument for the point of hearing the dispute without actually caring which side won or lost.

"So what do you think, Kate?" Sarah finally asked, turning to me as if, up until this point, she had forgotten I was even there.

"Oh, I don't think, I just sit here and look pretty," I tossed back with a flippant smile, unwilling to commit to any answer until I was sure of her motivation in asking. I had no intent of providing the foil for whatever point she was trying to demonstrate.

Sarah laughed politely, settling back in her chair and lighting a cigarette, observing me carefully. "Oh, you're not going to get away with that here, Kate, we've already seen your claws."

"Oh, but I don't know the first thing about the subject," I insisted. "I don't tell Damien how to paint, and he doesn't tell me how to write pop songs."

"Exactly why I'm asking you," she replied. Funny, those had been Damien's exact words on several occasions. Was she trying to turn his usual method around on him? Now that was interesting. "Actually, I'm terribly interested to hear what a member of the _general public_ , as it were, has to say on the subject."

"Oh, but I'm not the general public," I declared flippantly, the troublemaker inside me fighting against the restrictive binds of my good sense. "I got the little note in the mail the day our single went to number one, saying that I'm officially a pop star, and therefore an official Arbiter of Taste now, giving me full license to take flying lessons, start an art collection and otherwise be involved in generally eccentric behaviour."

"This idea of the general public is a pretence anyway," sighed Michael disconsolately. "Nobody makes art for the general public. They make it for a few thousand wealthy collectors, patrons and other taste-makers."

"That's not true!" thundered Damien, his eyes flashing angrily. He was not playing any more - his pride had actually been piqued. "I want to make things that are accessible - that anyone can understand!"

"Tell that to Mr. Suuchi," Michael drawled drolly, folding his long, thin, elegant hands on the table in front of him, as if fully aware of the gauntlet he was throwing down.

"Well, it just sounds like you have a particularly narrow definition of what art is, Michael," I retorted. All eyes turned towards me slowly and incredulously, as if they had only just noticed that the furniture was talking. I didn't even have the excuse of drunkenness to condone my behaviour, after two tiny thimbles of wine. 

_Shut up, Kate, you are in over your head. You don't know what you are talking about. This is not a bunch of rowdy pop stars talking pseudo-intellectual gobshite with bored journalists over cocktails and cocaine - these are genuine intellectuals and artists, the sort of people whose opinions actually matter in the real world of thought and ideas, not just the common street market of your experience. In short, the sort of people who, quite frankly, scare you to death._

"So what, my dear, do you think is wrong with my _narrow_ definition of art?" sneered Michael sarcastically, as if asking the question of a child.

"For a start, I think the reason that you don't believe that there is any creativity left in modern art is because the truly creative minds of our generation don't go into fine art any more. It's perceived as a totally academic profession for idealists and madmen - the modern equivalent of debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. There are still intensely creative and progressive things being done, but they're being done in fields of things like design and computer animation and even fucking advertising. I mean, what is it all about at the end of the day? It's about transmitting emotional content in an aesthetically appealing package to the viewer. I think more creative effort and artistry - and certainly more money - goes into making one average television commercial aesthetically appealing and emotionally effective than into the entire output of the National Arts Council."

Realising that everyone was staring at me, I wisely managed to stop myself before I went any further. It was like being caught in a nightmare I couldn't stop - suddenly Damien burst out laughing, and my face burned with shame. Why the bloody hell couldn't I keep my mouth shut? Well, that was it, I'd been found out as a complete phoney, a stupid, uneducated twit, and our relationship was over. I might as well just go home and pack my bags, never to be seen in polite society again. I could see it in the mirth in his face - all along, he had been secretly ashamed of me, setting me up for this.

Michael shook his head slowly, folding up his napkin and depositing it in the centre of his plate. "You've trained her well, Damien," he finally announced. So that was it - I was an oddity on display for the amusement of his friends.

Damien wiped his eyes, trying to regain control of himself. "That's the best part! I've not trained her at all!"

Fighting back tears, I picked my napkin off my lap and threw it at the table, leaping to my feet, and bolting blindly from the restaurant before I started sobbing, refusing to let them see my react.

"Kate!" Damien was on his feet, a second behind me, chasing me out into the street and seizing me by the arm. "Kate!" I tried to push him off me, but he held me fast, pulling me towards him and crushing me against his chest.

"Don't touch me! You're laughing at me!" I spat.

"Kate..." Pulling back, he suddenly noticed that I was crying. "What? What's the matter?" he demanded, wiping away the tears with his thumbs, smearing my mascara across my cheekbones.

"You're mocking me," I spat. "You set me up so you and your smart friends could all have a go at laughing at how stupid I am."

"Oh, Kate, I'm not laughing at you," he insisted, breaking into a spate of tiny giggles again, then quickly regaining control of himself. "Far from it! Stop being so damn insecure! We're laughing because Michael and I had exactly the same argument a few weeks ago, with me saying exactly the same things to him, and he countered by telling me that I was a cynical, over-educated, deconstructionist with a head so full of post-post-modern conceptualism that I was no longer able to tell the parody from the original."

"I don't even know what a deconstrictionivist is," I confessed morosely, fumbling over the word.

"You just proved my point! I wasn't laughing at _you -_ I was laughing at _him_!"

I stared at him foolishly, unable to believe what he was saying.

"Kate, you have to have more faith in yourself sometimes." He grinned widely. "Michael is one of the most feared critics in London, and you just completely thrashed him."

My face went pale at the thought. I had walked into it so innocently, completely unaware of who he was. "Oh my god."

"And that's what I utterly adore about you. You just don't give a shit. I've spent my whole life refusing to kow-tow to these holy cows and I refuse to start now. It's just ironic when, after a lifetime of fighting them, you find yourself in the place of one." Leaning over, he took my face between his hands. "And that's why you're so good for me. You just don't know it to buy into it. You take all these things as they come, evaluating them simply on the basis of your own intellect, without giving a shit about what the rules are supposed to be."

"But no," I insisted. "You have to know what the rules are, before you can break them."

Damien shook his head. "I don't believe that at all. Sometimes the rules are completely wrong. We just go on following them because we can't mentally conceive of anything else. How many notes are there in the scale?" he suddenly barked.

"Erm..." Music theory had been so long ago I had to stop and think. "Seven in an octave. Or do you mean semi-tones? There are twelve of those all together..."

"Twelve is fine, for argument's sake. We all believe that, we all go with that, we all play our twelve-note scales or whatever you play when you play them. But what if space aliens come down tomorrow and tell us that there are twenty? Or a hundred? Or two thousand?"

"It is a fairly arbitrary decision, based on frequencies and hearing limitations of the human ear. They use a different tuning system entirely in India, but, I mean they've tried to integrate that. With alternative tunings and things like that - starting with John Cage back in the 60's, who influence the Velvet Underground - and then Glenn Branca's Guitar Orchestra, which spawned the more pop approach of Sonic Youth..." I started to babble, happy to finally be back on the safe ground of a subject I knew something the hell about, but Damien cut me off.

"And that's what Pop Art was. Some space alien coming down and saying 'you can't separate commercial art and fine art - that's just an arbitrary division!' Only I want to push it further. I want to say you can't even separate art and science - _that's_ an arbitrary decision!" His eyes were lit up from within, as if by some unholy fervour. "Come on!" he insisted, taking me by the hand and dragging me off down the street.

"Where are we going? What about your friends back there?" I panted, breaking into a trot to keep up with him.

"Fuck them. They'll understand."

" _Damien_ ," I reminded him sharply, and he stopped, kissing me on the face.

"You're right." Taking me by the hand, he pulled me back into the restaurant, announcing "She's right, you know."

Michael looked up at him, alarmed, and I somehow knew that this whole incident was being filed away somewhere as fuel for future gossip about Damien and I. "If you say so, Damien."

"No, I think because _she_ says so," pointed out Sarah with a warm smile in my direction. Somehow, I had the feeling I had just made an ally. "Anyway, I must leave you, as I have to be somewhere at 3. Kate, how long are you in town for?"

"Erm..."I don't really know," I stuttered awkwardly. _Until Damien gets sick of me and throws me out._ "On and off for most of the summer, I expect, and then we go on tour."

"Well, good. I'm having a party in a few weeks and both of you simply must come. Damien... Michael... as always, a pleasure."

 

We ended up, as usual, at the Groucho. We always ended up at the Groucho; that summer it truly seemed as if there were no other bar in London. _The place where everybody knows your name_ it was not, but for us harried pop stars and other assorted scenesters, it was a place where everybody was too hung up on their own social status to admit that they knew your name. In a strange way, despite the movie stars and media magnates rubbing shoulders at the bar, it was the most anonymous place on earth. Get too many _somebodies_ in one place, and everyone becomes a wonderfully refreshing _nobody_.

As Damien slowly did the rounds, acknowledging and greeting the usual crew with boisterous " _Keef!_ "s and " _Jonesy!_ "s and " _Jarvo!_ "s, I made my way to the bar, batting my eyelashes at the impeccably dressed Professor of Mixology until he mixed our drinks about twice as large and three times as strong as anyone else in the club's. Across the room, I could see a young woman hiding behind a copy of the _Philadelphia Inquirer_. Surely, there was only one person who ever insisted that that paper be brought here... 

Bouncing over, I plopped myself down on the sofa next to her and asked in a stage whisper, "I'm nobody. Are you nobody, too?"

Em folded the newspaper, peering over the top of it, but her face lit up in a cautious smile when she saw me. "Don't tell; they'd banish us, you know," she continued slowly.

"How dreary to be somebody," I sighed, laying my hand to my brow like a Victorian heroine.

"How public, like a frog," observed Em, starting to break into a giggle as I handed her the enormous mug of Jack Daniels and coke that had originally been intended for Damien.

"To tell your name the livelong June to an admiring bog!" we both shouted in boisterous unison, collapsing over each other in a fit of mirth.

"This place certainly is the admiring bog," observed Em, shrugging off the disapproving glances of the boozing television presenters at the bar who were quite obviously _not_ fans of Emily Dickinson.

"Bog, I will give you. Admiring, _well_..." Clinking our glasses together, we took deep draughts, shivering at the tiny amount of coke in our Jack Daniels. "So what are you doing here? I thought you were off in France or somewhere, shooting Air Supply or whatever they're called."

"Air," corrected Em with a smirk.

"Whatever," I laughed. Although Alex was here often enough to have a brass plaque with his name on it in the snooker room, Em's presence was a rare treat. Alex always complained bitterly that business took her out of town more than it kept her in town, but for some reason, she just didn't seem the type for the relentless boozing that usually occurred here, even when she was home.

"Actually, Alex and I are supposed to be meeting Kate and J here for dinner."

"Well, I'm here!" I announced with a Game Show Girl flourish. "But who's J?"

"No, not you, silly," sniggered Em, whacking me softly with her folded up newspaper. What was it about me that inspired the normally sedate Em to random acts of cartoon violence? I must have been a bad influence. "Kate Sutton. And Jarvis Shaffter. You know, the singer from Gulp."

"Oh - Jarvo!" I exclaimed. That was the problem with Alex and Damien - they had developed such an extensive set of nicknames for all their friends that it was sometimes a shock to discover their real names and occupations. "He's in the snooker room with Damien."

"Is he?" A flicker of annoyance across her eyes. "I sent Alex in there to look for him, oh about..." she glanced at her watch perfunctorily, then narrowed her eyes. "...twenty minutes ago. He could have at least _told_ me that..."

" _Emma Jane Evesham!_ " proclaimed a female voice from across the room. Jane? Her middle name was Jane? It would be. I turned to see a diminutive woman in an even more diminutive minidress barrelling down on us with fire in her eyes and her short hair standing in spiky points, making her look even more like the firebrand she clearly was.

" _Kathleen Allison Sutton_ ," shot back Em with a authoritatively scolding tone in her voice I had never heard. If she had once been a teacher, she must have been able to get an entire auditorium of unruly pupil's attention with that voice.

"No! _No!_ You don't understand! The bloody _traffic_... on Tottenham Court fucking Road..." She really spoke like that, all italics and bold print, 24 points high.

"You are twenty minutes late. _Twenty!_ " countered Em firmly, tapping her wristwatch.

Kathleen Allison Sutton stopped in mid rant, pausing for a drag of her cigarette, leaving it hanging from her mouth as she shrugged and ran her fingers over her stylishly cropped hair. "Yeah, well, I bet J is even later." She had the most extraordinary accent, like an American who had been stranded in the East End for about a decade.

"Wrong, again," contradicted Em, tapping a cigarette impatiently against the box before lighting it. "He's playing snooker with Alex at this very moment."

The firebrand paused for a moment, then plunged headlong into protestation anew. "The _taxi_ , sweetie, the bloody taxi!"

Em waved her hand dismissively, refusing to listen to this nonsense. "I'm used to it; you're _always_ late."

"I'm not _always_ late," sulked the new woman, turning to me with wounded eyes as if looking for back-up.

"Always," contradicted Em, turning to me with a nod. I smirked conspiratorially; I had not even been introduced to the woman, and already Em was drawing me into their friendly squabble. And it was obviously friendly - I knew the look with which Em regarded people she held in distaste far too well, yet there was nothing but amusement in her eyes. "Kate, have you met Kate?" She giggled slightly at how silly that sounded.

"Oh, right! _Kate_ ," nodded the new Kate with a knowing sneer. "God, there's bloody enough of us, isn't there? They'll have to start handing out numbers soon to tell us apart. I'm Kate 17, are you Kate 22?"

"It was one of the most popular girl's name in the UK during the mid 70s," I shrugged. Kate beamed as if I'd just given her the hugest compliment, and I suddenly realised that she was probably older than she looked.

"Kate Sutton, this is Kate Gordon, the bassist for the Charms," introduced Em. Kate's eyes widened noticeably, so much so that I had to wonder if she knew about my past relationship with Alex Jones. Of course she did. Everyone in London knew about it, and all of them wondered the same thing - why were Em and I so chummy when the tabloids were still painting us as mortal enemies locked in a deadly catfight? "Kate Gordon, this is Kate Sutton, the fashion designer."

"So you're the other Kate everyone always gets me mixed up with," I laughed, shaking her hand heartily. "Can I buy you a drink?"

Something odd flickered across her face as she contemplated this. "Erm... no. I'll just have coke. A _diet_ coke," she added with a quick glance toward Em, who beamed approvingly and nodded encouragement. 12-stepper? She didn't seem the type, but then again, weren't all these fashion people recovering coke addicts? It would certainly explain her 18 year old's waistline.

"I'll go get the boys, then. Kate, you and Damien will join us for supper, won't you?" Em added diplomatically.

"Damien? Damien bloody Hearse?" gasped Kate. Why was it people seemed unable to mention him without inserting a swearword between his first and last names? "He still owes me for that suit he blagged off me during the Vanity Fair shoot!"

"Send a bill to his office, and I'll make sure Dale takes care of it," I assured her.

Kate looked between us questioningly until Em mouthed, "I told you they were an item, Katie!"

For a moment, Kate looked almost embarrassed, but quickly covered it with her usual swagger. "I know _that_!" she insisted with ruffled feathers. "I just didn't think that..."

She stopped herself, though I caught the inflection as she and Em exchanged meaningful looks, then Em disappeared to the snooker room to retrieve their errant boyfriends. Damien Hearse and Kate Gordon, the party boy and party girl of the London set, couched in cosy domesticity; me reminding him to pay his bills. It seemed so unbelievable, even to me. I couldn't help myself; I burst out laughing, recalling the first conversation Damien and I had ever had about our relationship. _Relationship_. It felt funny to call it that, though I supposed it was by this point. I'd honestly never thought about it in that sense until now, when we were suddenly thrust together with two incredibly couple-y couples. For a moment, I panicked, as the image of PTA meetings and tupperware parties drifted uncontrollably through my mind. Any day now, Damien would come home with a Volvo Minivan and announce that he had invited the Joneses and the Shaffters over for a potluck supper after the jumble sale... 

"Oh, good, she's gone. Be a dear and change my drink to Malibu Rum and Coke?" interjected Kate, dragging me forcibly back from my suburban married nightmare. Groucho Club. Boozing artists and pop stars. Drunken television presenters trying to pick up flustered starlets. _Thank god!_  

"Are you sure?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, don't you start, darling. I've just come back from two weeks in the states with Nick fucking Moog trying to drag me to NA meetings because I went off the rails once a long time ago during a nasty break-up with J."

Nick Moog? Was the world really that small? Everything seemed to come back to within six degrees of AbSynth. If she knew Nick, she must know Gary. And if she knew Gary, then... 

"You're in the band with that Elizabeth Blair girl, aren't you?" she blurted out suddenly. "How's Beth doing?"

I cringed, nodding as I handed her a drink. "You know Beth?" I tried to venture brightly and innocently.

Kate laughed wickedly, spearing her drink aggressively, and raising the lime to her mouth, chewing it thoughtfully between her ruby red lips. "I know Beth. That girl has balls, I'll give her that. Talented, though. I'll definitely give her that. I was expecting some sort of prima donna attitude from her, but she was dead professional. Better than the super-models, that's for certain."

I practically choked on my drink. Gary's preference for super-models was well documented, but what could she possibly mean by professional? I _knew_ Beth; she'd been in love, naïve and foolish. There was nothing mercenary about their relationship. "Professional?" I stuttered, flustered. "No, I'm sorry, you're completely mistaken."

Kate grinned, knocking her drink back with a practised air. "You're just more than slightly jealous, aren't you?"

" _Jealous?_ " I blinked several times in rapid succession. What on earth could she mean? Jealous of what? Sharing the man I loved with the mother of his three exquisite children? Feeling the heartwrenching guilt fighting with the jealous demons of envy? Thank you, no! God, I had lived with Beth through those torturous months of her clandestine affair, and then the shattering ending. How could she possibly be so stupid to get all tangled up in the whole mess again?

"She's going to be fabulous, you know. Totally steal the whole thing - mark my words."

Did Beth really think that she could steal Gary back from his wife? He'd already given his answer, hadn't he? And that answer had definitely been a resounding no. "Beth's not like that!" I insisted, beginning to raise my voice. I was already a little buzzed from the luncheon wine, and the Jack Daniels was not helping. "She would never steal another woman's man! She _wouldn't!_ I know her a lot better than you do!"

Kate looked clearly perplexed "Man? Honey, I was talking about an Oscar!"

"Oscar?" Was this some sort of AbSynth in-joke? "I thought it was Gary!"

"Gary?" Kate stared at me as if I were completely mad. Over the next minute or so of total silence, the realisation of how different the subjects we had been mistakenly discussion slowly dawned on us, our faces slowly registering each others shock and embarrassment. "Kate, what are you talking about?"

I turned bright red. She didn't know? "Nothing," I suddenly blustered.

"I don't know anyone named Gary... Oh wait! Yes, I do. Kate... What are you saying?"

Barely believing that the inner circle of AbSynth knew nothing about it, I tried to change the subject. "I'm not saying anything," I protested innocently. "What are _you_ saying? Who's Oscar?" Oh god, please, let there be a new man in Beth's life named Oscar, and let it not be Gary fucking Goode... 

"An Oscar. As in an Academy Award. Kate, do you have gossip about Beth Blair and Gary Goode? Spill it! _Now!_ " Her eyes shone with mischievous curiosity.

"No, you tell me about this Academy Award! For what?"

Kate stared at me as if I had been living under a rock for the past six months. "She has a supporting role in the new Ewan MacGlashan film, _Please Kill Me_. Bloody hell, where have you been, Kate? It's been the talk of the town! I've just spent two weeks in New York fucking City working on costume designs for it."

I blinked in disbelief. "Acting?' She's been _acting?_ " I repeated dumbly. "But all the phone calls at odd hours... I could have sworn it was Gary..."

Throwing her head back, Kate laughed raucously. "Gary? No, dear, Gary has been in Mustique with the family. But now that you mention it, Julian, the director, is from Birmingham. I never noticed it before, but he _does_ sound quite a bit like Gary Goode, especially on the phone. He's an absolutely incorrigible flirt, as well. Incapable of having a conversation without calling you sweetie or darling at least twice a sentence..."

My mouth hung open, my mind reeling at the mix-up. I'd never actually exchanged more than half a dozen words with the man - it was Emma who'd insisted that the conversation had been of the romantic nature. Then again, Emma was so suspicious when it came to Beth's lovelife, that as far as she was concerned, an extra trip to the supermarket meant that Beth was having an affair with the checkout boy. "I wonder why Beth hasn't told us!" I suddenly yelped, reeling with the perceived snub.

"I don't know why you haven't read about it - it's been in all the trade papers, now that Ewan MacGlashan is such a big star. It's about the punk/no-wave scene in the late 70's early 80's. Pretty amusing to watch, considering I was _there_ the first time around. That's how I got my start, you know. Runaway teenager safety pinning shirts for Debby Harry. But I add the authentic _je ne sais quois_ , I think," she added grandly.

"Ewan MacGlashan?" I repeated dumbly. Here I was talking to one of the legends of the fashion world, probably completely sick of the vacuous conversations of models, and all I could do was parrot her phrases back at her like a trained monkey. "No wonder she hasn't told us - Maddie would freak the fuck out!"

"My god, it's been all over the press here," she continued, successfully distracted my unintentional slip about Beth's indiscretions. "They've been getting in current musicians to play their 70s counterparts - that guitarist from Plastique, the singer from Panacea... J is doing a song especially for the sound track. I think that Radioshack are involved, too - at least Thom and Jonny are. They've been filming for weeks now. I'm surprised you could avoid hearing about it!"

"I've been in London for several weeks," I mumbled as an excuse. Beth? Acting? Well, it wasn't completely unprecedented, as she'd been in several musicals as a child. But there was quite a difference between the exaggerated gestures of the Broadway stage and the claustrophobic atmosphere of a film. I hoped she could pull it off, or it would be yet another one of those endless Rock Star In Decline clichés that we would be saddled with.

We were interrupted by the burble of voices as Em re-entered the room, followed by a gaggle of our errant boyfriends. "Ssshhh" warned Kate, putting her finger to her lips, then grabbing me by the hand. "Don't let Em know about the rum."

"She'll smell it on you!" I teased back, squeezing her hand in support.

"Kate! _Kates!_ " giggled Em, already slightly tipsy. "So what are we doing? Come on, we're late for supper."

Alex and I ended up sitting next to one another in the crush at the table, and for the first time in ages, I actually didn't mind. We giggled over our drinks and gossiped about our bands.

"It's going OK, actually. We've all had a little break, started solo projects," beamed Alex, lighting a cigarette. "I think Damon realised it was that, or I'd end up quitting the band. It was Graham, really. He said he was putting out a solo album and then, boom! That was it. There's been so much less tension. I don't know why we didn't do it years ago. But I suppose it was because we liked each other too much then. But when you take a break from one another, you start to realise why liked working with these clowns in the first place."

"I'm glad to hear that," I nodded encouraging. For a fraction of a moment, I felt a tiny twinge in my chest, remembering how caught up in that battle I had been, but it passed like the shadow of a cloud.

"How about you? Are you girls playing in England at all this year?" Alex suddenly piped up. 

"Well, we're playing Glastonbury, I think."

"Oh good! So are we. It'll be fun to see you. It's been ages. Far too long."

"Wait until you hear our new material. It should delight your sugar pop sensibilities," I teased.

"Really? Any songs about me?" he teased with a twinkle in his eye.

"I'll take the fifth on that one," I laughed. Of course there were songs about him on the album. One song about being miserable and wanting him, and not being able to have him, one song about having him and being utterly, ecstatically, dizzyingly happy, and one song about how horrible it was when it all fell apart. Come to think of it, all three of the songs that I'd written lyrics for on this album were about him. Could I really be joking this casually about it in a friendly conversation? Although I felt convinced that it should hurt like hell to talk about it, for some reason, it barely seemed to bother me, sliding off my skin like something long-forgotten and buried.

"We don't have the fifth amendment in this country," warned Damien, reaching over from my other side to tickle me in the ribs. "Come on, out with it."

"No! _No!_ " I shrieked, leaping slightly to get away from him, though there was nothing but playfulness in our eyes.

"You've never written a song about me," sulked Damien jestingly.

"And how do you know?" hooted Alex, prodding his appetiser with a knife.

"Oh, I have," I threatened playfully. "It's called _Co-dependent Love Song_ , but none of the other Charms want anything to do with it. They say it's too sickly-sweet and romantic." Reassured of my affections, Damien tried to spear Alex's appetiser with his fork, but was repulsed, so he turned his greedy eye to my unguarded plate. "Go on, I know you want to," I sighed, pushing the olive toward him. I loathed olives, and he loathed pickles - whenever one of us encountered the hated vegetable, the other would relieve us of it.

Letting Damien make short work of my appetiser, I turned towards Kate. "So this movie, that Beth is involved with it. Do you know where it's shooting?" I ventured as innocently as possible.

"Of course I do. Why, do you want to come along tomorrow?" she offered with an evil gleam to her eye. "We need some extras for a crowd scene in a night-club. I'm sure I could find a costume in your size."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kate goes to visit the set of Beth's new movie, she's thrown into a chance meeting with Thom Eboracum, singer of Radioshack, whose album Yes, TRS-80 has been the only thing keeping her sane during the past year. It doesn't go quite how either of them expect.

Early the next morning, I picked my way down to Oxford Street, to the night-club that was portraying the legendary punk hangout, the 100 Club. I knocked nervously on the door of the trailer parked round the back, praying that the lighting people trailing in and out the door had given me the right directions.

"Where the hell have you been?" demanded Kate, practically grabbing me by the collar and dragging me into the room. "I've already gone through all of the stuff the costume department provided - but you're lucky I had a few pieces left from my personal collection. Here, try this on."

"You've got to be joking!" I scoffed, eyeing the tiny leather miniskirt and the rubber tube top.

"If it's good enough for Debbie Harry, it's bloody well good enough for you!" blustered Kate.

"Debbie Harry wore this?" I wondered out loud. When Kate nodded, muttering something through a mouthful of safety pins, I decided to give the outfit another chance, retreating behind a rack of clothes to attempt to pour myself into it. "What do you think?" I finally sighed as I emerged, tugging nervously at the hem of the skirt.

Kate took one look at me, then hiked the skirt back up about two inches, and added a few strategic safety pins. "Perfect. I just need to take you over to the stylist so he can hit your hair with the crimping iron, and..."

"Crimping iron?" I lamented, fearing the damage to my follicles as I slumped down into the chair Kate gestured to. "This is _so_ not my era."

"Sorry, but _Up And Down With The Rolling Stones_ doesn't start filming until next year," teased Kate from the opposite end of the room, cackling madly as she dressed another victim while the stylist narrowly missed my ear with the crimping iron. "I'm sure I can get you a bit part in that, though!" 

For a few minutes, I fretted as the man fussed about, teasing my hair, then stared into the mirror. "Ack! Help me! I look like Toyah fucking Wilcox!"

"I'm sure he can find you a Siouxsie frightwig, if you'd rather," cackled Kate. "Don't worry, you look lovely. Now get moving - filming starts in ten minutes! Come on - I'll go in with you - I have a speaking role in this scene, I'll have you know."

"Ooh, what do you say?" I inquired as she closed the door behind us.

"Get me some real fucking whisky, you arsehole - this one is so watered down it tastes like fucking club soda!" she screamed, and for a moment, I winced, before realising that this was her line, not a threat.

"Very convincing. I can tell you're really getting inside that character's motivation, there!" I teased as she threaded her arm through mine and the two of us plunged through the centre of the crowd, past the cameras towards the bar. Loud music was blasting from the sound system - The Clash's first album, it sounded like. If it wasn't for the omnipresent camera crews, if I squinted, I could almost imagine that I was a teenager back at a hardcore show at the VFW, dodging the mohawked punks and weirdoes. "Where's Beth?" I whispered, narrowly avoiding being hit by a dolly microphone.

"They're probably just finishing up the backstage scenes. Oh, wait, no, here comes the director..."

A man strolled onto the stage from a hole in the wall, surveying the crowd as he paced up and down with the megaphone. "Right, you lot. Remember - energy! You're about to see your favourite band on the face of the planet! I want _energy_! I want you lot bouncing off the fucking walls!" Climbing down off the stage, he settled back into his place behind the cameras, as the crew started their back chatter of lights, camera and action, then suddenly, the Clash cut out, and the stage lights came up.

Dressed to the nines in a tiny leather dress and a pair of ripped fishnets, her hair teased out to the size of a small bush, her eyes smeared with black eyeliner like an Egyptian queen, Beth stalked across the stage to the microphone, then started to pogo in place as her band mimed to the backing track pumping through the sound system.

Standing immediately behind Beth, the small wiry man with the bright ginger hair, wrapped in a unnaturally iridescent red PVC suit, seemed strangely familiar. As did the tall, lanky dark-haired guitarist bearing down on his instrument with inhuman spite. "Wait a minute, isn't that...?" I stuttered over the noise.

"It's, um, oh what are they called?" Kate snapped her fingers as if trying to remember. "Radioshack. A fucking prog group, and they're playing Beth's punk band. Ironic, isn't it, considering they write exactly the sort of music that punk rock and new wave blasted off the airwaves!" Apparently, Kate did not have too high an opinion of them.

"Actually, I quite like them," I protested, but my complaint was lost in a blistering two-note guitar solo, then the song was over. Quite like them? Now, that was an understatement - _Yes, TRS-80_ had been the soundtrack to my entire life for the past few months. And now Thom and Jonny were standing a few feet away, strutting and preening like peacocks for the cameras.

"Yeah, fuck you, London," screamed Beth, pacing the stage like a caged lioness. "You're all already dead and you don't even know it! You're all fucking zombies, still walking around, cause somebody forgot to tell you to fall down!" 

The obviously choreographed between-songs banter was rather silly, but there was no denying that Beth was electrifying performer. Although I'd shared a stage with her probably hundreds of times, this was the first time that I ever got to watch her from the audience, taking in the full effect of her charisma without having to worry about the thousand other tiny minutia of my own performance. As the next song started, she started to scan the audience as if she had just found out that the person that murdered her father was out there, and I realised the genesis of the Butterfly-Impaling Eyes remark, feeling those huge, violet spotlights sweeping the room.

Pushed forward by the surging crowd, I felt myself borne up towards the stage. I tried to stay out of Beth's line of sight, but for a moment, the crowd parted and our eyes locked. Ever the consummate professional, she did not react, a slightly raised eyebrow being the only sign of recognition, but I could tell that she had seen me, stalking closer to the edge of the stage and peering off into the gloom with renewed fervour.

One more song, and the director yelled "Cut! Great, great, everyone. Stay where you are - Ten minutes, and then we'll do scenes 87, 88 and 89 - bar chatter, and various crowd moments."

The tall, dark-haired guitarist muttered something I did not catch and towelled his face off, looking incredibly uncomfortable in his velvet trousers and a skin-tight woman's lace shirt. 

Beth laughed, her eyes sparkling with fun, and then she hopped off the stage. "Kate! Kate, where are you? I know I saw you..." For a moment, I contemplated hiding behind one of the scary looking fellows with the giant mohawks, but she had already seen me. "Kate, what the hell are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I was going to ask you the same question!" I laughed. "Since when were you the movie star? Can't say I'm surprised though - you looked phenomenal up there."

Beth laughed, sliding out from under the compliment graciously. "Well, it's just being on stage. We're good at that. The acting bits scare me to death, though. But how the hell did you find out about this?"

"I had dinner with the costume designer last night. But you should have told me yourself!"

"I was embarrassed. I mean, what if it flops. I didn't want to make that big deal of it, in case..." she whined, twisting her shoulders around awkwardly.

"Just in case Maddie finds out you're working with Ewan MacGlashan?"

"Well, that too," she admitted. "Though he really is sweet. And such a flirt! I can totally understand why... but we don't talk about that, do we?" she sighed, noting my disapproving glance.

"Beth?" We both turned at the quiet male voice behind her. "I'm just going around the corner to get a packet of crisps. Do you want anything?" It was the tall, dark-haired guitarist from her stage band.

"Oh yeah, can you just get me a pack of chewing gum? My mouth is really dry. Let me just get some change..." she directed, digging in the tiny scrap of leather she was wearing for some money.

"No worries - I've got it," replied the guitarist shyly, then jaunted off before I could get a chance to introduce myself.

"Radioshack," I gushed. "Radioshack are playing your fucking backing band? Can I tell you how jealous I am?"

Beth grinned widely, her little girl smile strangely incongruous with the caked-on black make-up and her bondage-slut outfit. "Tell me about it! I mean - Jonny Greensleaves is _so_ nice. His is _such_ a sweetheart. But Thom Eboracum? Every time he comes near me, I'm a complete mess. I can't even talk to him - I mean, how do you tell the greatest lyricist of our generation that he's stepping on your mic cable?"

"Greatest lyricist of our generation?" I repeated. "Wow, this is a change. Didn't that used to be Gary Goode?"

Beth glared at me for a moment, then shrugged. A year ago, this statement would have triggered a slammed door and a sulking fit, but it seemed as if we had all moved on. "OK, it's a close call..." she admitted.

"Don't want to be in public, my head is full of chopstick - I don't like it!' I hiccoughed in imitation of Gary's overbearing tenor.

"Shut up!" insisted Beth, lighting a cigarette, then turning around to stare at the small, red-headed man picking his way through the crowd of unruly punk rockers. "Look at him - I mean, he's so tiny and so vulnerable..."

Staring at him carefully, I wondered if this was the man whose lyrics had accompanied me and soothed me through so many moments of desperation and defeat. I had to admit I was more than slightly starstruck, but somehow he looked different from how I'd imagined him. He seemed taller, more self confident when he was onstage. "It's weird how different some pop stars look in the flesh. I thought he'd be some alien sex god, but seriously. He's weird-looking. I mean - he looks like Ed Grimley! Huh huh huh," I quipped in Beavis and Butthead style, trying to cover my nervousness.

Beth whirled around as if she were about to hit me, but a soft voice laughed behind us. "Who is Ed Grimley, anyway? I've heard the comparison before." Turning around slowly, I looked directly into the amused smirk of the other guitarist, standing behind the bar with a packet of crisps in one hand, and a stick of chewing gum in the other. Oh my god, shoot me now. "Here you go, Elizabeth."

"Ooh, thanks, Jonny, you're an angel," replied Beth, acknowledging him, and accepting the gift with a smile.

"An American comic. Or is he Canadian?" I stuttered, mortified at the gaffe, though Jonny seemed to be taking it in his stride.

"What's the difference? I always thought Canada was an American colony, anyway. It's just like America, only with the Queen on their currency." His voice was soft, with a slight lisp and an intimidatingly refined Oxford inflection, but the wry humour behind his statement helped to drain the bright red flush of embarrassment from my face. Did Radioshack actually have a sense of humour? It seemed unthinkable, given their reputation in the press as a gang of morose, dry, self-obsessed student types. Then again, what did the press know? I was hardly going to start believing press hype now.

"I'm not going to listen to this from two Brits!" sniffed Beth, tossing her hair and starting to walk away.

In a single bound, Jonny leapt up and round the table, chasing her with a loping gait. "Wait, wait, I was joking, Elizabeth! You're not Canadian, are you?"

Before I had a chance to follow her and apologise, the director was up at the bar, barking orders. "Hey, Sutton - where are you? Time for your big cameo. Right - extras. You! And You!" he pointed to another loitering character, then back at me. "Up at the bar and make small talk in the background. Where the hell is MacGlashan? Get him in here. You! Guitar boy!" He pointed at Thom, still wandering pathetically back and forth across the venue, looking lost. "Pick up groupies at the bar. Try the blonde."

Thom looked back and forth between the director and me with a panic-struck, deer in the headlights sort of expression. "Groupies? I'm scared of groupies," he finally managed to splutter.

"That's why it's called _acting_ , Eboracum! Where the fuck is Ewan? The can? Tell him to get his ass out here and fast!"

Wandering over toward me, Thom stared at me as if terrified that I was going to lunge out and bite him. One of his blue-grey eyes was wide with surprise, the other drooping, half-closed, as if his gaze was permanently fixed in upon himself, giving him an otherworldly expression. "Oh my god, it's Kate Gordon. Oh good lord, I'm dead."

He knew my name? He recognised me under the rubber and the hairspray? In a way, I was strangely flattered. "Reports of my savagery have been vastly exaggerated," I deadpanned. "I haven't eaten anyone in a good, oh, two weeks or so."

"MacGlashan! Nice of you to join us!" sneered the director as the star of the movie staggered towards the bar. Either he was so coked up that he could barely walk straight, or he truly was the Laurence Olivier of his generation. "Right, places, everyone."

"No, my girlfriend is going to _kill_ me..." Thom smiled, but still eyed me suspiciously under my crimped yellow haystack. _What has my life been reduced to?_ I thought to myself. I'm standing in the middle of a smelly punk rock night-club, wearing a rubber tube top, and here I am trying to make polite conversation with the singer of my favourite band on earth. The things I get myself into in the name of art! If I didn't clutch onto something, my hands would start shaking with sheer nervousness. Distracted by the interaction with Thom, I had barely noticed that the camera had started rolling and the film was being shot.

"So, uh," I ventured, picking a drink off the bar and tasting it tentatively. _Ugh, coloured water._ "You come here often?" I joked, trying to break the ice. This was not how I wanted to meet my heroes. I'd pictured some wood-panelled library in the heart of Oxford, with him carrying a volume of the lyrical poetry of Thomas Hardy, me flipping through the Tibetan Book of the Dead; we bump elbows and exchange brilliant witticisms, then adjourn for dry sherry in a nearby gentlemen's drinking club and... 

"Only when my foolish guitarist thinks talks me into performing like a trained monkey in a cage for the nice film people because he's always dreamed of writing film soundtracks," he complained, dragging me back unwillingly to the dirty film set. Despite the world-weary tone of his voice, he was actually smiling sarcastically. "You?"

"Oh, I came here to look for our AWOL singer, and ended up being abducted and sold into the film extra slave trade. This is completely surreal," I observed. "Do you think these people are paid extras, or real leftovers still banging around from 1977? They seem a bit young for that, though."

"I don't think most of them were born in 1977," sighed Thom, leaning on his elbows back against the bar as he observed the audience with his knowing smirk. "Weekend punks, as we used to call them. I suddenly feel so very old."

"That's funny. They make me feel kind of teenage, like they take me back to my ill-spent youth." How could he be so... _normal?_ It was almost disappointing. One always expected pop stars to be as tortured and charismatic offstage as they were on. He seemed more the type to sit around, discussing the alienation in Dostoyevsky, rather than chatting amicably but vacuously about his surroundings, odd as they might be.

"You were a teenager in the 70s?" He peered at me curiously. "I thought you lot were supposed to be ridiculously young?"

"No, the 80s."

"Oh. Didn't I read somewhere that you were about 20 or something?"

I laughed. "Oh no, we lied about our ages. That was a complete fabrication. We lied about everything when we started out; we never thought anyone would actually believe us. I wish I was everything that my unofficial biography claimed I was."

"I have to admit, I feel a bit cheated. Your publicist lied - we've been talking for, oh..." he glanced at his watch quickly. "...five minutes, and you haven't even attempted sexual congress with me yet," he teased.

"Shock! Horror! The Charms are actually completely boring!" I laughed. "It might be nice if - for once in my life - I could have a conversation that didn't start out with five minutes of the other person being surprised how completely unlike my public image I am."

"Oh, I'm sorry," apologised Thom, fumbling with his drink and staring down at his shoes. "I really should have known better. I'm forever getting the same thing from fans. I know exactly what that's like, but it never stops me from falling for it. What would you prefer to talk about? Alienation in Dostoyevsky?" he asked with a wink, as if reading my mind. "The growing economic crisis in Southeast Asia? The conceptual art scene in London?"

"Thank you, no, I get enough of that at home," I laughed.

"Cut!" snarled the director. "MacGlashan, do you need to take another look at the script? And you lot in the background - can we get some action out of you? This is supposed to be the most outrageous punk rock club in 1977, not tea with the fucking Queen Mum. Look alive out there, will you?!"

Thom cringed visibly, as if looking for a way to escape.

"Right, so much for conversation. Shall we just snog, then?" I joked, trying to diffuse the tension, then immediately wanted to shoot myself for the wisecrack.

Thom shifted awkwardly, stared at his shoes, then squinted up at me, smiling crookedly. "Um, I suppose that's what he really wants. Just don't tell my girlfriend. She already thinks I have a crush on your singer."

"Do you?" I asked, leering. Now this was interesting gossip.

"No," he insisted, rather too forcefully, and something oddly competitive tripped in the back of my mind. Beth didn't love Radioshack. Well, she liked them, but she didn't _love_ them like I did. And this was not a chance I was likely to get again.

_Oh god. Well, close your eyes and think of England,_ I thought to myself, leaning forward, then interrupting myself with a stream of giggles. With anyone else, this would be easy, a quick snog, feel them up a bit, mug for the camera. But this was Thom fucking Eboracum. "This is too ridiculous. I can't."

"This is hardly helping my low self esteem," whined Thom, though his grin belied his belittlement. The wry childishness was unexpected, but somehow reassuring. "Come on - think of it as cod liver oil and just get it over with."

"You had to take cod liver oil, too? That stuff is nasty!" I grimaced.

"The doctor said it would be good for my asthma," sighed Thom.

"Asthma? They said I had to take it for anaemia."

"Oh, that, too. I was a sickly child," he confessed.

"Oh, I can't imagine," I teased. He still looked a bit like a sickly child, actually, though the endearing sort you wanted to take home and give a bath and a hot meal.

"Oh come on, my childhood health problems have been cause for speculations as the source of my neuroses for years," he imparted, leaning closer and widening his eyes with definite sarcasm in his voice. It was a little disorienting how they didn't quite match up. "Haven't you read it all over the press? Early surgical trauma, beaten at school as a child, prone to manic depressive temper tantrums, on the verge of slashing my wrists - oh, and smack addict. Don't forget smack addict."

I grinned, relieved to discover a mischievous streak of humour under the terrifying aloofness. Something about him made me feel like a child, comparing scars in a sandbox. "Wait, they've started filming again. We should, um..."

"Right. Cod liver oil. Close your eyes and think of England. Here goes." 

Closing my eyes, I lunged forward, but our noses collided awkwardly. "Ouch."

"Sorry." We tried again, tilting our heads sideways, our mouths sliding together like tentative jellyfish. OK, this wasn't so bad, nibbling gently at his lips. Extending my arms, I ran my fingers around the back of his neck, pulling him towards me until he got the idea, resting his hands lightly on my hips.

"Cut!" yelled the director, and we shot apart like guilty schoolchildren, afraid to be caught enjoying ourselves too much participating in what was supposed to be a chore. "Sutton, you're supposed to _interrupt_ him. Interrupt means you charge right in before he's finished, not wait until he's done with his lines..."

"I didn't want to step on his lines!" grumbled Kate, her feathers ruffled.

"Timing, ladies - timing!" growled the director. "Right - take three!"

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" I whispered to Thom.

"Kind of nice," he agreed with a sly smile.

"I have a feeling you're enjoying this far more than you want to," I teased.

"Acting, my dear. _Acting!_ " chirped Thom in imitation of our director, wheezing slightly as he cackled, then paused reflectively. "Sometimes it's good to get completely out of yourself. It's not everyone who gets the chance to pretend to be someone that you are not on a regular basis."

The second attempt was somewhat smoother, as he allowed his lips to part, admitting my searching tongue, but he still seemed unable to relax, his mouth stiff and hard with nervousness, instead of soft and yielding. He still held his body at a discreet distance, though I could feel his arms encircling my waist, only tentatively, as if afraid to touch my skin beneath the rubber. And no matter how awkward it seemed, it was still far easier than actually sitting down and making conversation with a complete stranger. Sex was always good for that, wasn't it? Avoiding letting people actually get close to you and keeping them at a safe emotional distance.

"Kate?" My concentration was shattered by Beth's irate voice. Pulling away from Thom, I saw her staring at me with an unspeakable combination of loathing and jealousy in her eyes. For a moment, she stared at us, her eyes flickering back and forth between me and the totally perplexed Thom, then she lunged at me, slapping me firmly on the cheek before whirling around and storming from the room.

"Oh fuck," I swore, dropping my arms from Thom's shoulders and pushing him away from me to go charging after her, leaving Thom staring after us completely awkwardly.

"No, keep rolling, it's good, adds atmosphere," hissed the director. "Go with it. We can dub the dialogue back in afterwards..."

I barely heard the rest of his remarks, running after Beth, calling her name as I followed her down the busy London street, breaking into a trot to catch up with her. "Beth! Come back here!" Catching her by the arm, I finally pulled her to face me. "What the fuck, Beth? What was _that_ for?" I demanded, my cheek still stinging from the blow.

"You knew!" she insisted. "You _knew_ that I liked him! And so you just charged over there, the first chance you got, and..."

"Beth, it was the director. He just picked us at random and told us to provide background action," I protested. "I didn't... oh god, I had no idea you were attracted to him! It wasn't on purpose."

"You could have said no!" she hissed, crossing and uncrossing her arms in agitation.

"Come on, sit down, let's get a cup of tea," I directed, pulling her out of the stream of lunchtime shoppers into a small café. Although I had spend half my life trying to pass for an American, after a few weeks back at home, England must have been wearing off on me, if I thought that every problem could be solved by the application of a hot, caffeinated beverage.

"He's the first guy I've been interested in, in ages... well, since Gary!" she sniffled into her Earl Grey.

"Beth... Look, I'm sorry. It was just a spur of the moment whim of the director when he saw me standing at the bar. I shouldn't have... but, for fucks sake, Beth. I hate to break it to you, but he's got a girlfriend."

"Of course he has a girlfriend," shrugged Beth, rolling her eyes in dismay. "Every fucking decent guy in the world seems to have a girlfriend or a wife or something. But still! You should have at least let me _pretend_ that I had half a fucking chance before running in and putting the moves on him."

"I'm sorry - I didn't know he meant that much to you," I apologised, feeling like the meanest, most rotten lowlife on earth.

"He didn't," she snorted dismissively. "It's just..." She stretched, raising her arms helplessly above her head. "I'm lying. It's not even about Thom. Why did you even have to come today?" she finally accused, completely changing the subject.

"I thought I'd surprise you. I thought you might be glad to see me," I stuttered, somewhat taken aback. Beth remained silent, staring sulkily at her tea, squishing her teabag with a spoon until it was a pulverised mush. "Why didn't you tell anyone that you were doing this?"

"I wanted to prove that I could do it on my own, without you lot - OK?" she finally snapped.

" _Beth_!" I admonished, hurt by the tone in her voice, completely perplexed and confused by what was going on.

"Suddenly, _everything_ has just become subject to our fucking myth," she swore. "I don't have a fucking social life. I don't have any friends outside of this band any more. I can't even meet people any more, because no one ever wants to ask about _me_ any more - all they want to talk about is the fucking Charms! Or _your_ fucking social life..." she added testily, sucking at her cigarette.

"That's not fair. Do you think I enjoy having my life ripped apart by the press?"

"I don't know."

"Beth!" I shrieked.

"I'm sorry, I apologise for that - it was uncalled for," she sighed, bending over and resting her head on her crossed arms. "I don't care what Amy says, I think it detracts from the band, though."

"It detracts from my fucking life!" I snorted. Well, while we were bringing up these issues, I had my own axe to grind. "And is it the band you think it detracts from, or your position as front woman within the band?" I accused.

Beth immediately sat up, folding her arms across her chest, her eyes flashing with indignation as she stared me down, though I noted that she didn't contradict me. "OK, perhaps you're right on that," she finally admitted. "You caught me on that one. But - it's like... you can't stand the idea that someone could possibly be doing something without you. You always want to go sticking your nose into everything because you can't stand the thought of being left out of something."

"Ouch," I winced.

"I'm sorry - I didn't mean for it to come out quite as harsh as that..."

"No, you're right," I sighed. "I think it hurts because you're right. But I think that bands are stronger for having two front people, two points of view - or more if you can balance it. Think of the Beatles - Lennon-McCartney. Think of the Stones - Jagger-Richards. In fact, they were even better when they revolved around the triple nucleus of Jagger, Richards and Brian Jones," I burbled by way of explanation. Whenever I was stuck for an explanation, I always fell back upon my cherished 60's archetypes, but at least Beth was one of the few people who understood, nodding appreciatively.

"I have _learned_ to share the limelight in the band, because I think it's better for the band," she explained. "But that's not what this is about. Everything is always about what's better for the band... the Charms this, the Charms that... I need to find out who I am under all that. _Myself_ \- not Beth Charms!"

"I understand that. Completely," I agreed. Finally, we were breaking through the layers of defences and petty jealousies to the root of the problem. Wasn't this, in fact, exactly what I'd been talking to Thom Eboracum about, ten minutes ago?

"That's what the whole idea behind my taking this acting job was. Trying to remember who I was and what I was about before this band - this _job_ took over my life."

"Look - we all do," I interjected. "I just wanted to show that I support you in this. It honestly wasn't about trying to shoulder in on your turf..."

Beth paused, putting her hand to her forehead and leaning forward, slumping over her cup of tea. "I know. I'm sorry I said that. But..." She raised her eyes and glanced about the room as if the words to articulate her discontent were scrawled up above the counter along with the prices of sticky buns and egg sandwiches. "For 5 years now, I have defined myself purely by being the singer of the Charms, because I don't have anything else. I see you and Emma and Maddie go home and have your relationships, and your lives, and everything... Me? I go home, and it's the fucking Charms, that's all I have."

"Look, I know you don't like to talk about it, but what about Gary? You've had relationships," I pointed out.

She shrugged. "Gary? That wasn't a relationship - that was just some teenage wish fulfilment come to life. Both of us were just indulging each others fantasies. I wanted a rich, suave, British rock star boyfriend, and he wanted to be 25 again. It was a distraction - that was all. And when it fell apart, what did I do? I threw myself back into the band again."

"But that's good. I mean, this band, it's like our gang. Our support system," I offered, remembering the times we'd spent laughing or crying on each others shoulders.

"It's not about you or my personal or professional relationship with you. It's about defining yourself entirely by your work - whether your working as a stockbroker or an artist..." Beth finally admitted. "It's about _me_. When I auditioned for this role - months ago, in secret, while you and Maddie were off at Carl's opening - I was scared shitless, OK? I didn't think that I could do it. When Julian called me back to offer me the role, I was actually shocked. But I have to do this, and I have to do this on my own to prove that I can make it on my own. Do you understand?"

I nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"Don't apologise. I'll understand if you think I'm being unreasonable. But I have to be unreasonable - don't ask me to explain."

"You're not being unreasonable. I understand," I sighed. "I actually feel a bit better, having all this shit out in the open."

For a long minute, there was silence between us as we sipped our tea, but not the uncomfortable, awkward silence of earlier - more like the quiet, peaceful understanding of two people who knew each other so well that they no longer needed to talk.

"But, Beth, I had to say it, but what about the band, though? Glastonbury is in less than two weeks, kicking off a tour of the UK, and we haven't played in months," I fretted.

"Yeah, it's all under control. Shooting is actually nearly over. Emma and Maddie are flying in at the end of the week, and we've rented a rehearsal studio in London. So don't worry - everything is going to be fine!"

"A week and a half? That's not enough. We used to have at least a month of rehearsals to get ready!" I protested.

"We'll rehearse for 4 hours every day!"

"Every day? What about _my_ life?" I whined.

"Shut up! That still leaves you plenty of time to shag Damien."

"I... I..." I stuttered defensively.

"Oh, shut up. My apartment is right below yours, and you two are _not_ a quiet couple!" she taunted.

The shop bell rang, but, absorbed in our friendly bickering, neither of us looked up at the new customer until he was practically on top of us. "Beth?" It was Jonny, the long dark hair falling in his face as he bent over the table only adding to his lost puppy dog look. "Are you alright? I've been looking for you everywhere!"

"We're fine," I assured him. "Just, um, band politics. You know." Beth laughed, flicking ash from her cigarette.

Jonny jumped, as if noticing my presence for the first time. "Oh, yeah, and Kate, the director wants you back to finish filming the scene."

For a moment, I considered it, then shook my head, noticing Beth's arched eyebrow. "No, I don't think so. This really isn't my crowd," I sighed, shaking my head. "I think I'm going to take off soon - I promised Damien I'd make him a curry tonight."

"Oh." Funny, Jonny didn't look too disappointed, squatting down next to Beth and gazing at her with obvious admiration. "Cause Thom's little brother's band is playing in London tonight, and he said to ask you two if you wanted to come along." He didn't even look at me as he asked, but Beth seemed oblivious to the attention.

"I don't think so," I demurred, but Beth protested.

"Oh come, on - can't you two meet us after dinner? I haven't seen Damien in ages."

"As if he could drag himself away from the Groucho snooker room," I laughed. "Besides," I whispered, getting up and moving round to her side of the table so that Jonny could take my vacated seat. "Three's a crowd."

"What?" She barely seemed to notice either my presence or my absence, caught up on in some joke Jonny was relating. It was perfectly obvious - Radioshack were her friends, not mine. I wasn't wanted here.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Damien unexpectedly has to go to Holland for an interview, and Alex has to go and play a warm-up gig in Bath, Kate Charms and Em Evesham find themselves on a girl-date for Glastonbury. And there, they really talk - about babies, about sex, and love... and Alex.

Glastonbury. Even the name seemed imbued with mythic meaning and loaded with significance. From its humble beginnings as a small hippie gathering during the late 60's, it had grown to _the_ event of the year in the British music world. Attendance was de riguer, but to play was a sought-after honour, and more of a barometer of your standing in the public mind than Top of the Pops, a weekly music paper cover and the midweek Chart Show all put together. 

The previous year, we had stumbled into an early afternoon support slot on one of the lesser stages, impressed by how legendary the festival was, but barely taking it seriously. This year, we had been pushed into a prime Saturday slot on the Pyramid stage, and, forbidding any repeats of the equipment failures of the previous performance, we would be riding a massive wave of popular support. The gig, our first public appearance in over a year, was to be the kick-off of a huge summer tour. The album would be coming out a few weeks later, and this was our chance to debut much of the new material in an informal setting.

But the band aside, Glastonbury marked another, more personal milestone for me. Two years ago, this weekend, in a moment of drugged stupidity, Ian had been conceived on the prehistoric landmark that gave the festival its name. Though it seemed impetuous and insignificant at the time, it was a weekend that had changed my life, for better or for worse, I still could not tell in retrospect. Without Ian, would things with Alex have progressed smoothly and naturally into a happy and lasting relationship?

Probably not, I mused, annoyed at myself for even pursuing the train of thought. And Ian, despite the twinge of pain at his absence, had been a blessing in disguise. It had been his presence that had caused me to give up the incessant mind-altering cocktail of drugs that had ultimately led to Jeremy's death. And after the relationship with Alex had come to its disastrous conclusion, it was the reassurance of Ian's presence that had kept me from spinning off into the abyss of loneliness and self pity.

Yes, Ian had definitely been a good thing. So why was he not here with me?

Steeling my nerves, I sat down at the telephone, then slowly, deliberately started to dial Tristram's number, staring at the entry in my address book as if gathering strength. "Tristram?" I asked hesitantly, trying to reinforce my quavering voice with a steely determination.

"Kate?" His voice was suddenly guarded and cautious. "What do you want? Your weekend is not for another 3 weeks."

Bastard! He had to rub it in, didn't he? "I know. But I was calling about this weekend."

"What about this weekend?" Come on, he was into that sort of thing. He had to know it was Glastonbury. Casting my mind back to the unofficial schedule, I tried to remember if his band was playing again this year. Actually, I didn't think they were, I noted with smug satisfaction.

"It's Glastonbury."

"I know what it is," he snapped, in direct contradiction of his earlier statement.

"Are you going?"

"We're not playing. Though I see you are." There was more than hint of jealousy in his voice. Good. Choke on that, you smug bastard.

"I asked if you were _going_ , not playing," I snapped.

"I might be. Why?" Our sentences were clipped and sharp, hiding the immense weight of emotions we'd never quite dealt with.

"I would like you to bring Ian." There, I'd said it, too polite to be a demand, but firm enough to leave no doubt as to the force of my intent.

"Would you? I don't think you have much say in the matter," snarled Tristram, then regained his self control. "Besides, he's far too young to be there. It's not appropriate."

"Why not? He was conceived there. I think it's highly appropriate."

Tristram quieted somewhat. There was no way he could argue with that, though god knows I could hear that he was about to try. I had a thousand other reasons primed and ready to fire in my head, when he astounded me by simply agreeing. "Alright. I'll bring him. We're camping all three nights. He's too young to understand what's going on, but I think he'll find it exciting, if nothing else."

My head spun with excitement. "Oh, Tristram, thank you." Forgetting that he was 'giving' me something that was mine by right, I was so borne up with joy that I forgot I was supposed to be full of righteous indignation.

"But Kate, promise me one thing," he pleaded.

"What?"

"Promise me that we won't fight in front of him. It's not good for him to see his parents at each others throats. It's bad enough that he had to go through the trial. Can we try to put that behind us?"

I bristled, but bit my tongue, resisting the urge to throw back _Well, whose idea was the trial, anyway?_ "Well, don't be an unreasonable bastard, and we won't fight."

He laughed, and for a moment, I remembered why it was we had once been lovers, as well as sparring partners. "Nice to see you've still got your sense of humour."

"I'll see you there, then."

Putting the phone back in the cradle, I skipped around the kitchen a few times in pure, idiot joy, then trotted off to find Damien to tell him the good news. I found him in the bedroom, cramming clothes into his overnight bag, holding up two ties next to his good blue silk suit.

"White shirt, red tie, blue shirt, yellow tie?" he asked urgently, turning to me.

"The yellow tie will look more pop art, but red, white and blue is for England," I told him authoritatively. "But don't you think you're overdressing a bit? I'm sure there'll be mud. There's always mud at Glastonbury."

"Glasto?" mused Damien, rolling up the red tie and tossing it in his bag. "No, dear. Dutch television."

"What?" I demanded. "I thought that was next weekend!"

He shook his head slowly. "Sorry, dear. Schnabel cancelled, so I've been moved up a week. Damn good, too."

"You can't!" I protested, throwing myself down on the bed next to the suitcase. "It's Glastonbury, Damien. You promised!"

Bending over, Damien kissed my nose. "I'm sorry, Kate. I'll make it up to you, I promise. I know this was important to you…"

"Important?" I whined, then looked over at the sky blue suit he was trying to get into the suitcase without wrinkling it. "You can't wear that on television. It's non-repro blue. All the Dutch public will see is your head floating on top of whatever background they project behind you."

Damien grinned. "Actually, that sounds kind of cool." Picking the suit off the bed, he returned to the closet with it and restored it to its hanger, selecting a darker blue. "Whatever would I do without you?" he asked rhetorically, flopping on top of me and thrusting his face into mine, his eyes wide and manic.

"What am _I_ going to do without you?" I moaned, suddenly remembering why I was annoyed at him.

"All of your friends will be there. Jarvis and Kate Sutton. Alex and Em…" suddenly his eyes lit up. "Oh, is that it?"

"No! I know what you are thinking, and that's not it at all!" I protested.

"You just don't want to see the happy couple without your boyfriend there to back you up. That's it, isn't it?" he reproached, starting to tickle me.

"That's not true!" I protested, seizing his hands and holding them behind his back before he could reach my sensitive waist.

"It is, it is, it is," Damien cackled, fighting to loose his hands.

"Well, what would you do if it was your ex-girlfriend and I wasn't there?" I snapped in defence.

"I'm not afflicted with ex-girlfriends," he replied haughtily.

"Bullshit. You just don't ever want to talk about them," I accused, going on the offence to deflect the focus from my insecurities.

"You've met a couple of them. If there was enough of a spark for me to still be disturbed by them, then you'd have cause to be upset with me. But I've dealt with my past," he snarled, suddenly no longer playing.

I dropped his hands, and he rolled away from me. "Are you saying I haven't dealt with my feelings for Alex? That's bullshit, Damien! There's still an occasional twinge, yes. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't. But what does it matter when I've got you?" Crawling over to where he sat, perched on the edge of the bed, I wrapped my arms around his neck and rested my chin on the top of his head. "But it's not even that shit that I care about. I just want you to see my band."

"I'm sorry, Kate," he finally sighed. "I do have to do this, though. I'm up for a commission from the Dutch government. It's very prestigious, and if I placate them by going on some stupid chat show, then I have a much better shot of getting it. I really am sorry. I did want to be there to support you, but you have to understand that this is _my_ career."

I snorted loudly, flopping back on the bed. How many times had I heard that before, from various men who expected me to sacrifice my career to their social lives, but would not return the favour?

"I'll make it up to you, duck, I promise," he assured me, rolling back towards me and wrapping his arms around my waist, burying his face in my hair.

 

Relenting slightly from my annoyance, I offered to drive him to the airport the next morning, but he demurred, claiming that he was going to take a train. Left to my own devices, I paced back and forth across the loft, then decided to surprise my band by arriving hours early at the festival grounds.

Just as I was throwing the last of my clothes in a backpack, the phone rang. "Kate?" blared Em Evesham's voice from the other end of the line. "I'm glad I caught you and Damien before you left."

"Damien's not going," I sighed loudly. "Apparently, explaining the imaginary influence of Rembrandt and Vermeer on his work to a Dutch television presenter is far more important than supporting his girlfriend."

"Well, that puts us in the same boat, then," laughed Em.

"But Alex has to go! He's playing!" I interjected.

"He's playing alright, but they've been up in Bath doing a series of warm-up gigs for the fan club. I was supposed to meet him last night, but they added another date at the last minute. I told him I'd meet him up there - I just wondered if you two had started out yet. We could split cab fare to the train station or something…" Ah, good old Em Evesham. Despite the reputed half a million pounds that she had made off the Mirage deal, she was still as thrifty as the day I'd met her. Then again, perhaps, like me, she was somewhat lonely and just wanted the company.

"I'll do you one better," I offered. "I was going to drive up. I'll swing over in about half an hour and pick you up on the way there. How about that?"

Em brightened considerably. "Do I finally get to see the fabled spotted Mini? Oh brilliant, I'll see if I can find an outfit to match. See you in a bit, then."

I pulled up outside Em and Alex's posh flat in Covent Garden, double parked the car dangerously close to the corner, and ran up to the door, ringing the bell jauntily.

"Come on up," blared Em's voice out of the intercom.

"Can't! I'm double parked," I explained, glancing back towards the car as a delivery truck slowed to pass it. Covent Garden might be pretty, but its streets were a traffic nightmare.

"You should have just honked, then," chided Em. "I'll be down in half a minute…"

Returning to the car, I perched on the bonnet, then jumped up as I saw Em stagger out of her door, loaded down with cameras, photo equipment and a large purple spotted umbrella. "Ooh, you do match my car. Hang on, I've got it, I've got it," I told her, relieving her of a bulky black bag. "What do you have in here?"

"My flashes…" Em informed me, depositing her cameras lovingly into the tiny boot of the sportscar.

"It's an outdoor festival. What do you need flashes for?"

"Oh, I was thinking I might get all experimental for the night time shows or something. Who knows. It's always good to try something you haven't done before."

"My god, look at the size of this thing," I observed, wondering how I was going to fit her enormous beach umbrella into the tiny boot of the car. "Do you really think we'll need this?"

"Trust me. It's Glastonbury. We'll need it! Did you hear the weather forecast? I hope you brought wellies."

Wellies? She had been in the country so long she was starting to talk like one of the natives. "It's not going to rain," I dismissed authoritatively.

"Famous last words," warned Em, sounding suspiciously like she was probably turning into her own mother.

"Right, let's get going."

"Oh, your car is so cute," she gushed. "I love the spots. Come on - let's get all the windows down! I want to feel the wind in my hair."

"Alright," I shrugged. "If you're sure it won't rain," I teased. I actually preferred to drive with the windows open and the stereo cranked, but I had wondered if Em would have worries about ruining her hairstyle or some such nonsense like that. Well, if she was up for fresh air I was certainly willing!

I had been a little nervous about spending a few hours in a car with Em. We had not spent any time, just the two of us, without the men, since the video shoot, back when Alex and I had still been dating, and I expected a few moments of residual weirdness. But as soon as we pulled away from the curb, Em put my worries to rest by pulling a Tesco's bag out of her enormous carryall.

"No road trip would be complete without… goodies!" She exclaimed. "Can of coke?"

"Oh, cheers!" Damien would have a fit if he knew that we were eating and drinking in his beloved car, but since he wasn't here, he could just get stuffed.

"I've got some chocolate, and some crisps, as well, for when we get hungry. And of course, some nice, fresh apples."

"Anti-calories, to combat all the other junk we're going to eat, right?" I giggled.

"Exactly. And now… for some music. Oh, you only have a tape-player?"

"It's actually Damien's baby, this car, even though he claims it's mine. And he won't let it go into the shop long enough to have a CD player installed. There's a box of tapes at your feet there, somewhere, though."

Em started to dig around in the debris at her feet, then pulled out the tape case, examining the tapes carefully. "Ooh, is this the new Charms album?" she asked, with awe in her voice. Come on, Em, I thought to myself, you have to be around bands long enough that the thrill of pre-release demos has to have worn off.

"Um, about one mix ago, I think. What's the date on it? May? No, that's the finished album, then. The record company said it was too long, though - a couple of those songs have been scrapped for b-sides and things."

"Can I put it on?"

"If you like. I was sick of it when it was done, but I haven't heard it in a month, so it'll be good to hear it, to get all excited before the gig. I had forgotten how much I liked the new material until we started rehearsing it again last week."

"Oh, I'm so excited to hear this. You mean I'll be the first person to hear this?"

"Outside of the band and the record company and a few friends, yeah. Advances haven't even gone to the press yet. We were waiting to see what the public response to the new material was before we decided what to cut for the final version. Then it'll go to pressing and advance promos and all that other bollocks," I rambled on.

"You don't understand. _Meet The Charms_ is still one of my all-time favourite darkroom albums," she enthused, pushing the tape into the player and turning the volume up. And all along, I thought she'd been only been schmoozing to get the video job. "I'm so excited for the new one."

"You can keep it if you like it," I shrugged, pulling out of the tiny crowded backstreets onto the highway. "I can always make Damien another one. That is, if you like it. It's a bit, erm… different than the first one."

The first song started, a tiny throb in the background. Em smiled, and tilted her head while I wished I was somewhere else. There was nothing I hated more than watching people listen to your new material for the first time while you were still in the room. If they liked it, it was embarrassing, and if they hated it, well… As the symphonic wash of electronic bleating swelled around the beat, she started to tap one finger along in time. Then suddenly, the bass came out of nowhere, a huge, soaring melody weaving around the rhythm like a voice.

"You _have_ been absorbing the New Order, haven't you?" laughed Em.

"Wait, it gets better," I promised. Out of nowhere, a fractured guitar skittered across the surface as if a spider was crawling across its strings, a jarringly discordant counter-melody. Em looked almost perplexed. Then, all at once the vocal hook appeared out of nowhere, four voices in a perfectly shaped harmony, shimmering over the top.

"It's lovely," Em gasped. "It's like the Byrds at a rave or something." I burst out laughing. "Oh no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that…"

"No, thank you. That's the best compliment we've had in ages! Damien reckoned it sounded like the Shangri-Las fronting Hawkwind…"

" _Hawkwind?_ You are making that up. I refuse to believe that there is a band called Hawkwind."

"Yeah, Hawkwind," I insisted. "You know - Space Ritual, girls in cages, _I got an orgone accumulator_ ," I started to sing, but Em stared at me blankly. "Never mind - What sort of chocolate did you say you had?" I wondered.

"Penguins. Ready for one?" offered Em.

"Yes, please!"

Several hours later, we pulled into the parking lot in high spirits, flashing our badges at the staff and then driving around aimlessly, scouting for familiar faces, blasting the new Charms album as loud as the car stereo would go.

"Ooh, is that a performer's pass?" shouted Em, peering at the tags around my neck. "I've only got a press pass."

"What's the difference?"

"Different colours," reckoned Em, comparing the two. "And yours is attached to a neat dog-tag chain."

"No, that's mine. I collect them. I've got a pass from each tour here. Some day it'll be quite valuable. That is, if it survives. The tag from our first American tour is starting to fall off, I think."

"It's lovely weather this year, though," she admitted, squinting up at the sky. "The last time I was here, it was an utter mudbath, though," she added defensively.

"It wasn't that bad," I shrugged. "But then again, we had the bus to run back to. We should have it again this year, but I don't know if the rest of the band are coming till tomorrow… Where do the busses park, anyway?"

Em pointed off to the distance, past the crowds of milling kids who sent up a cheer when they saw a pop star and a photographer driving about the fields in the distinctively spotted Mini. "Slow down for a minute, I want to get a picture."

"Come on, let's park and get out there," I whined. "I have to find Tristram."

"Tristram Thornaby-Gore?' probed Em, turning around in her seat and leaning against the back of the car to take another photo of the kids in line to get in. "What do you want to find that creep for?"

"He's brought Ian," I informed her, trying to sound as dispassionate as possible.

Em turned back to me and stared. "Ian? Your baby?" I nodded. "I'm going to get to meet Ian? Oh, I'm so psyched. I love babies. I wish I'd known, I would have brought my baby distracting kit!"

I parked, and with some difficulty, I managed to find the pre-ordained meeting place where I had said that I would rendezvous with Tristram. Scanning the crowd with her telephoto lens, Em waved wildly to me. "Is that him?"

I peered through the camera and nodded, my stomach churning. Far off in the distance, I could spy Tristram coming down the hill with some sort of bizarre papoose arrangement strapped to his chest. Peering over the top of the canvas were the unmistakable bright eyes and white hair of my son. "That's him. Tristram!" I waved wildly until I caught his attention. Letting out a squeal, I handed the camera back to Em and ran off down the path to meet them, pulling Ian out of the papoose and swinging him around in a mad spin as I crushed him to my chest. 

"Oh my god, you're getting so big, my little man. I barely recognised you. Look at you! Look at you!" I had no time for baby talk; I addressed Ian as if he understood every word that I said in perfect English. I had half expected him to let out a wail and start screaming for his father, but he beamed with delight, responding to my greeting with a stream of monosyllabic baby nonsense. "Look, he's smiling. He knows who I am, and he's happy to see me," I told Em, holding up my beautiful child for her to admire.

"It's probably just gas," interrupted Tristram.

"No, that's a smile," contradicted Em, bending in close to grin back at him. "Hullo, Ian," she ventured, and launched into "What a lovely baby you are. Look at those beautiful eyes! Those are your mommy's eyes, do you know that?" For a moment, I winced at the pointed dig at Tristram, as their incredibly blue eyes were one of the few physical similarities they shared, but Ian gurgled and responded in kind, chattering back at her animatedly and waving his arms about excitedly before latching his hold back onto my neck. "Oh, Kate, he's lovely. He looks just like you, you know. Except he does have his father's eyes," she confessed as soon as Tristram had turned away. "And his father's clothes," she observed, taking in Ian's miniature Indian paisley shirt. "Oh my, what a grip!" she exclaimed as Ian suddenly reached out and encircled one of her fingers with his tiny grasp.

"Come on, Ian, let go," I pleaded, untangling his fingers from hers and distracting him with the brightly coloured beads around my neck. "No, no, don't strangle mummy, that's not a good idea…" I chided, unwrapping the necklace from around my neck and handing it to him. Not just attractive, but utilitarian as well, the beads seemed to be an utter child magnet. "Shall we go and look for my friends and show him off?" I asked, turning to Em.

"Um, can I have the baby back, please?" interrupted Tristram with a worried look. "I don't feel comfortable, letting you wander off with him."

"Tristram!" I whined, clutching my baby close with a wounded expression. He had him 7 days a week, 3 and a half weeks of the month - what difference did a few hours make?

"Come on, Tris," interceded Em with that calm, rational schoolteacher air she reserved for difficult cases. "Just for a few hours. I'll be here the whole time. Go see a few bands or something with your girlfriend." I'd hardly noticed her, standing a few feet off, behind Tristram. A pale, washed-out looking blond, she could have been my anaemic little sister. "How long has it been since you had some time alone together?"

Tristram looked back and forth between Em and I, but his girlfriend pulled at his sleeve, casting him an appealing glance. "Alright, I suppose. For a few hours. But have him back at our tent by 7pm. I mean it! No later," he finally conceded. "Here, take his carrier. There are extra nappies in the front pouch. And wait, here's his bottle, if he gets cranky…"

I never knew taking care of a baby involved so much paraphernalia, but Em handled it like a pro, stuffing it into an extra pouch in her camera bag. "I don't suppose I can ask you to hold any cameras now, can I?" she teased, pausing to take a snapshot of Ian and I framed against the background of the food booths. "God, he's photogenic. You don't mind that I'm taking so many pictures of him, do you?"

I beamed. "Everyone thinks their own baby is beautiful, though."

"No, he definitely is," assured Em.

"Are you working tonight, or can we check out some bands?"

Em shook her head. "Slur are tomorrow, and Gulp aren't until Sunday, so until then, I'm just taking in the atmosphere. Why, who do you fancy taking in?"

"The John Heppen Booze Explosion is at the third stage in a little bit. He's a friend of the Sugarpussy gang - I should really go over and say hi."

Avoiding the circle of crazed hippies beating drums in the middle of the path, we picked our way through the crowd, stopping for the occasional photo op and obligatory autograph session. The mood of the crowd was phenomenal, as complete strangers walked up and cooed at Ian, then shouted their wishes of good luck for the gig the next evening.

In the strange tent-like construction that passed for the backstage area, I suddenly caught sight of two familiar heads in the sea of various scenesters and hangers-on. "Beth! Emma!" I called out, bounding over with Em at my heels. "You're here! Do you have the bus?"

Beth turned around from her gab session with the Booze Explosion, smiling widely when she saw me. "Kate! I was hoping you got our message that we were coming down today! Our bus is parked in the VIP camping ground. it's the big pink one, you can't miss it." Her hair was still sporting the fuchsia streaks she had put in for her movie role, so with her and Emma flanking John, they looked strangely like an American flag.

"I didn't, but it doesn't matter. I'm here anyway."

"Hang on a second - let me get a photo," called Em, in the phrase that was becoming a ritual chant. John put one arm around each of their waists, as they mugged for the camera, pulling the perfect impression of the ultimate swinger with a beautiful woman on each arm. "Beautiful. I'm beginning to think I won't even have to shoot Slur or Gulp - I'm getting enough material just wandering around."

Oh!" gushed Beth, suddenly catching sight of Ian. "Look who's here! Oh, let me hold him, Kate?" Remembering how enamoured of the babies in the Ob/Gyn office she had been, I surrendered my child to her, letting her pick him up and whirl him about in the air. "Remember me? Do ya, huh? I was the first person to hold you apart from the doctors."

Ian chirped with glee, as if he did remember - or perhaps he was just entranced by the bright streaks of pinkish red in her hair. Beth had been my Lamaze partner, coaching me through the entire process of childbirth, swearing up and down at the inherent sexism in the idea of the "Father's Waiting Room" where she'd bought coffee and cigarettes. As Emma leaned over, pulling funny faces, the sensation in my chest grew almost unbearable. At the time we'd joked about how spoiled Ian would have been, growing up with four mothers. Who would have known that he would have to grow up without a mother at all?

"Where's Maddie?" I wondered, trying to drag my mind away from the subject as I looked around, occasionally waving at distant friends and acquaintances.

"Where do you think? In the dance tent, bopping her handbag around to Autechre," snorted Emma, pulling her notorious _Japanese Demon Grimace_ to the shrieking appreciation of the baby. "God, put that camera away, Em, get a beer. Enjoy yourself, and try not to be working for just one evening, will you?" Em looked as if she were about to protest for a moment, then shrugged and complied. "Kate, you look far too sober, too. Get yourself a beer, girl!"

"Can't. Baby on board," I explained.

"So? You're not breast-feeding. What does it matter? Live a little!" urged Emma.

I shook my head. "Not very responsible under these circumstances. Besides, that's all I need, is for Tristram to see me boozing it up with the baby."

"Fuck Tristram!" ejected Beth crossly.

"She already did! That's what got her in this mess in the first place!" cackled Emma, who had already been enjoying too much of the Guinness herself at this point. "Ouch! What was that for, Kate?"

"It wasn't me - it was the baby. Watch it - he has a mean right hook!" I laughed in mock innocence.

"Come on, join in, Kate. I'll split a glass of wine with you," offered Em. "That way, we'll both keep from getting too plastered."

"Oh, man, I am so psyched for Pharmaceutical Brothers. Me and Maddie are going to try to get up front if we have to kill people to do it!" interrupted Emma, satisfied that we were getting into the proper festival state of inebriation.

"Pharmaceutical Brothers? No way - Primal Scream!" contradicted Beth. "Kate! Oh my god, Bobbie Gillespie slithered past me in his leather trousers and…"

"It's a sock," announced Emma to no one in particular.

"It's not a sock!" burst out Beth and I in unison, a habit reinforced by years of rewinding early Jesus and Mary Chain videos.

"It's a sock," imparted Em with a shiver. "I did a shoot with them, and trust me. It's totally not real. He stuffs it."

"Em!" All three of us turned and stared at the innocent-seeming photographer, who was now turning red with an incongruously evil snicker.

"But we're going to Portishead. I fucking love Portishead," announced Em decisively.

The four of us squabbled for a few more minutes, then wandered off our separate directions to take in whatever the festival had to offer. Everywhere we went, Em and I seemed to attract attention, two attractive and apparently single women wandering around with a baby. Add to that the tabloid rumour mill that had painted us as mortal enemies, competing for the attention of Alex Jones, and we became a travelling side-show in and of ourselves. Although I had always thought of Em as somewhat shy and reclusive, she seemed to blossom under the attention, slowly emerging from her cocoon of caution to enjoy the festivities with almost the proper amount of abandon.

But as the two of us grew more relaxed and our moods grew lighter, the sky grew ominously darker, the early afternoon sun disappearing behind a bank of grey clouds. "Let's go back to the car for the umbrella?" suggested Em, but I remained dubious.

"Nonsense!" I snorted, refusing to be intimidated.

"Kate…" Off in the distance, there was a low roll that might be thunder. "I think I felt a raindrop."

"Alright, alright," I finally conceded.

Just as we got to the car, rain started to dribble slowly out of the sky. Em smirked with a superior air, but mercifully said nothing, expanding the large purple polka dotted umbrella that was quite easily big enough to shelter all three of us. As the trickle deepened to a steady downpour, the three of us slipped happily past gangs of miserable kids running for cover.

"Alright, you don't have to say anything. I admit, I'm glad you brought the umbrella," I finally growled.

"Shall we head over to that clump of trees over there?" suggested Em, pointing off to a small grove halfway between two fields. "There will probably be more shelter there, and we can still get a good view of what's going on."

The three of us found ourselves up on the side of a hill, sheltered by the benevolent branches of an enormous oak tree. Watching the crowds of people flooding from one stage to another in the distance, we could just about make out who was on the various stages, but only vague snatches of music reached us as we lay in the long grass with our backs against the roots, Ian between us, watching the sun set over the swirling tableau below. Despite our promises of sobriety, the two of us had managed to put away an entire bottle of wine between us, and though not drunk, we were both more than slightly tipsy.

"God, he's just so beautiful," I sighed, staring at the tiny blond creature beside me, utterly absorbed in his toes.

"Who?" asked Em distractedly, sitting up and staring down at the stage in the distance.

"Ian, of course," I supplied, rolling my eyes. "Sometimes I just look at him and can't believe that anyone that perfect could have resulted from such a flawed thing. It was such a mistake, the entire thing with Tristram… I can't even call it a relationship, cause it wasn't even that. A mistake, that's all I can call it. But it wasn't, because I look at Ian… God, I mean, his eyes - look at them! Did you ever see such knowing, intelligent eyes in such a young baby?"

"He does have gorgeous eyes," agreed Em. "Beautiful eyes are very important."

"Alex has nice eyes," I ventured. "Very warm, very loving."

For a moment, Em hesitated, fear showing in her eyes, but then she just laughed it off, agreeing. "Yes, I've always thought so. They were one of the first things that I noticed about him," she finally confessed. "And, you know, Damien really has very pretty blue eyes, if he ever lets anyone get close enough to see them," she added.

My god, did Em just actually say something nice about Damien? She loathed him; I knew she did, though she seemed to tolerate him for Alex's sake. Who ever thought that here the two of us would be, a few months later, huddled together under a tree, bonding by complimenting each others tastes in men. "Damien is very handsome - when he _wants_ to be," I defended affectionately. "He just doesn't want anyone to know it."

Em giggled. "Love is blind, isn't it?" she teased, then deftly changed the subject. "Do you have visitation rights at all, if you don't mind my asking?"

A vague, dull, throbbing ache spread through my heart as I reached out and ran my fingers through the fine corn silk hair that covered Ian's head. "One weekend, once every two months, and I have to be accompanied by another adult that Tristram approves. I don't get un-supervised visits until he turns twelve."

"What?" gasped Em, sitting up and brushing hay out of her hair. "That's outrageous? Why?"

I took a deep breath. "Tristram presented evidence at the trial that insinuated that I was a drug abuser. Nothing direct that we could actually deny, but he brought up Jeremy's arrest record, and he brought up that stupid article about Damien and I at the Design Museum. If he'd ever come out and accused me of being a drug addict, we could have contradicted it, but his lawyer was too slick. So basically, the judge was given that impression, and handed down the appropriate sentence for the mother of a crack baby." I was trying to make my voice sound as dry as possible, but with Ian actually in my sight and in my grasp, it smarted like a wound that had never healed.

"That's outrageous. I mean, you're not on drugs!" exploded Em indignantly.

"I don't even smoke pot any more, which is more than I can say for Tristram, but he wasn't the one on trial," I snorted bitterly. "If they'd given us urine tests in the courthouse, I can guarantee you that I would have passed, and he wouldn't have."

"Have you thought of appealing?"

"I've thought of it, yeah, but…" My voice trailed off. I had been so beaten down and disheartened after the trial that I honestly believed that it might be the best thing for Ian to live with his father, because my life was so unstable. "Actually, my lawyer suggested that the reason that the sentence was so harsh was because the trial was held in New York. Believe it or not, the New York City family court system is one of the most biased, because they feel like they're the most under siege. They deal with so many genuine cases of babies born addicted to drugs, that they get a child in that courtroom, and they hear even the faintest hint of an allegation of drug abuse, they whack the child into foster care without even asking questions, because chances are that the accusations are not unfounded."

"That's so fucking sad. I mean…" Em's voice trailed off, leaving me unsure as to whether she implied it was sad that they had leapt to conclusions, or sad that such conditions existed in the first place. "You should file an appeal. It's just not right that you don't get to see him."

"I know!" I protested. "I mean, I saw him last, when? A month ago? And I had to beg and plead to get this visit. Look, he can just about sit up on his own now! He couldn't do that the last time I saw him. I'm missing so much of his life!" Rolling over, I pulled him nearer to me and rubbed my nose against his until he cooed with joy.

"And you were so scared that you wouldn't be good with kids," observed Em with a wry smile.

"Someone actually suggested that I file a motion for an appeal, not in New York, but in Britain, where Tristram lives. English law is actually more progressive when it comes to drugs, for a start, and they're more likely to favour the mother. Though I hate to think that way. It sounds so cynical, doesn't it? Like we're squabbling over control of some conglomerate corporation, when what we're squabbling over is this tiny, innocent child."

"I don't think it's cynical, I think it's pragmatic," determined Em. "Tristram didn't exactly play fair, if he brought up the drug habits of a dead man."

"I just don't want to reduce myself to his level, you know?" Sitting up, I swept Ian into my lap, brushing his face gently with a leaf of grass until he giggled. "I want to do what's best for Ian, not what's best for me, or worst for Tristram. It's not fair to drag him into our fucking mess… Oops, shouldn't swear around the K.I.D., should I?" I looked up with a guilty grin.

Em was smiling at us, her hand over her mouth, and a bittersweet expression of pain and longing on her face. "It _is_ best for Ian, I think." Taking the last swig of the bottle of wine, she held it up as if she was going to chuck it into the bushes, then caught sight of Ian, and prudently tucked it inside her voluminous bag. "So, did we make up our mind - James or Asian Dub Foundation?"

"Is it that late already? Oh, _crap_!"

"What?" asked Em worriedly.

"I promised Tristram I'd have Ian back at his tent at seven, remember? Shit, we better get a move on…"

It was nearly 7:30 by the time we located Tristram's tent, but astoundingly, he seemed to be in a relaxed and easy-going mood. "Did you have a good time, there, little squire?" he inquired of Ian tenderly, folding him up in his slight arms as I surrendered him with a sad but contented resignation. After making sure that his son was in one piece, Tristram finally turned back to me. "Did he…?"

I nodded. "We changed him about an hour ago." I paused for a moment, then ploughed into the next request. "Tomorrow, could we take him out again…?"

Tristram sighed and took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for something he knew was inevitable. "I wanted to take him to the Tor around lunchtime, but if you want him for the afternoon, then I see no reason why not… so long as he is in bed by a reasonable hour…"

My heart leapt. "Our show? Can he see our show?"

Tristram smiled. "I'd like nothing better. Having a strong female role model in his life is terribly important to his development. That's a good image to reinforce."

Choking back tears, I felt like throwing my arms around Tristram and kissing him, but I restrained myself, saving my affection for my son. For a moment, I wondered, trying to imagine what life would have been like with Tristram. Could we have possibly got ourselves together and worked things out for the sake of Ian, setting aside our differences and trying to make a real family? Tristram wasn't so bad… I'd fancied him once; or at least, I'd thought I had…

"Jennifer, where's the bloody travel cot? Do I have to do everything?" he barked at the long-suffering nanny in the tent next to his, suddenly dragging me back to reality. There was a reason Tristram and I had not worked together, and I did not wish to resurrect the old wounds.

"Are you OK?" asked Em, touching my shoulder lightly as the two of us walked away from the camping ground, back towards the stage.

I nodded slowly, though I doubted my assurance when I asserted that I was. "I just…" I felt suddenly cold, as if the heat had gone with the setting sun. "I wish Damien was here."

Padding morosely through the mud, I followed Em along the path back towards the festival. "It's alright, we've got each other," protested Em, hooking her arm through mine in solidarity.

"Yeah, well, no offence, but I can hardly snog you, can I?" I teased.

Em tossed her hair back out of her eyes indignantly. "And why not?" she countered with a laughing smirk. How much of that bottle of wine had she drunk?

"Right then, come 'ere, baby!" I threatened, puckering my lips and moving toward her.

Em shrieked and took off down the path. "You have to catch me first, don't you?" she laughed.

Laughing and shouting, the two of us slid down the narrow passage between backstage areas, taking a shortcut to the other stage, but after the dark of the fields, the glare of the lights was disorienting. Misjudging the distance between us as I lunged towards her, I slipped on a patch of mud and went sprawling to the ground.

"Fuck!" I screamed, holding up my hands, palms smeared with mud, my legs spattered with dirt. "Ooh, ooh, you bitch. Watch out" I warned, picking up a clod and hurling it in her direction.

"Don't even start that," warned Em, bending down to pick up her own sod of earth. "I throw a mean curve ball. I used to play softball in middle school - don't even try it!"

Suddenly, a large figure hovering over me blocked out the light, his head framed by a halo of blond hair. "You aw'right?" asked a cigarette-stained voice.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine," I responded quickly, taking the offer of a helping hand pulling me to my feet. Standing up, I looked directly into the face of an angel. In his incredibly tight trousers and his striped shirt, I thought for a moment that it was Brian Jones back from the dead to rescue us from the mud. "I think my pride is bruised more than anything else," I added, trying unsuccessfully to brush the mud from my favourite mod minidress.

He smiled, looking me up and down with that unmistakable spark of interest, and I felt my skin flush with anticipation. "No reason for it to be. You even fall gracefully."

"Thank you." In any other situation, I would have blushed, but drunk on a little bit too much wine and the honey of adulation, I grinned back at him flirtatiously, twisting a strand of hair around one finger.

Squinting, he drew back a little. "Did anyone ever tell you that you look a bit like Anita Pallenberg?"

I laughed. Whoever he was, he was certainly pushing the right buttons. "Ooh, Juggle! Tell me more!" I quoted with an abominable fake German accent.

The blond angel grinned. "Crikey. That's good. All you need is a marmalade coloured fur, and… oh crap." He cocked his head at the sound of announcements from the stage. "I have to go on in a minute. Are you going to be around after the show?"

So he was playing? Well, what else would he be doing backstage? "I might."

Flustered, he padded down his jacket as if searching for something. "Crap, I don't have any extra backstage passes, but do you want to meet me at the bus, after…"

"Don't need one," I informed him, rolling my eyes and retrieving my performer pass from wherever the fall had displaced it, flashing it at him.

"Wait, what's your name?" he demanded, catching me by the wrist.

"Kate. Kate Gordon," I informed him

"Oh. _Oh!_ " His face lit up visibly. "Come find me afterwards!"

"Perhaps. If your band's any good." Sometimes I fucking loved being Kate Fucking Gordon. "Good luck - break a leg!"

As he dashed off towards the stage, Em stared at me, trying very carefully not to gape with the innocently open-mouthed surprise I knew was lurking beneath that studiedly jaded expression. "Who was that?" she wondered out loud as her eyes followed the puff of golden hair out of sight.

"I don't have a clue."

"Good-looking bloke," observed Em diplomatically, as if wondering what to say.

"Good looking? That's an understatement! Try beautiful! I wonder who the hell he is. Do you have a program on you?"

"Are you going to…?" Em's voice trailed off as she dug in her bag for the schedule.

"Meet him after?" As I stared at the door where he'd disappeared, a thousand possibilities floated through my head. Urgent, frenzied backstage sex, nights of passion in hotel rooms leading to popping flashbulbs as the two of us stepped through airport gates together, hand in hand, stylish sunglasses attempting to shield our identities from the inevitable gossip column mentions… 

Suddenly, Damien's face appeared in my mind, his eyebrow raised in that mischievous smirk that meant he was about to say something outrageous, floated through my mind and I grinned uncontrollably. "Nah. Been there, seen that, done that, got the T-shirt, lost it at the laundrette… I'm so fucking over the groupie thing. From either side." Em stared at me quizzically. "The attention is always nice, though."

"He seemed like completely your type, though."

"Physically, yeah, I suppose so," I shrugged. What was my type, anyway? Skinny, shaggy-haired, drugged and slightly effeminate? Where did Damien fit into that archetype?

"And he knows who Anita Pallenberg is, obviously…"

I turned to confront her lascivious grin. "Yeah, but do you think he knows who Francis Bacon was? Do you think he has the faintest clue about the science behind the chemical makeup of neurotransmitters or the history of non representative art? I'm not into pretty boys any more, I'm into clever boys now. Besides, why are you playing devil's advocate, anyway?"

Em tried guiltily to wipe the smirk off her face, but her interest was obvious. "I'm not! Honestly, I'm not!"

She obviously wasn't interested in the man, but something about the situation intrigued her. "Em!"

"I'm sorry," she admitted, then drew closer to me as we tramped out into the field again. "It's just… I don't know how to say this without sounding horribly rude. You just, I mean…" She took a deep breath, then studied me with her earnest grey eyes. "You have some sort of bizarre effect on men…"

"Yeah, it's called sex," I snorted dismissively.

"No, it's more than that," sniffed Em defensively, pulling a cigarette out of her backpack and lighting it. "I mean, I've _had_ sex," she added boldly, as if this were news to me. I raised an eyebrow at her and started to chuckle, clearly not believing the innocent act. "No! I mean, you know what I mean!" She wriggled uncomfortably, trying to explain herself. "It's all so easy for you, you know?"

"Easy?" I asked in disbelief.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that!" she protested, holding her hand over the perfect pucker of her open mouth. "It just… it intrigues me the way you are so _in control_ of your sexuality." She paused, staring up at the familiar stars, which had finally made an appearance from behind the clouds, before continuing. "It's almost like you use it, as, I don't know - some sort of weapon against people's preconceptions of you."

The words hit me like a slap in the face, though I knew they were not aimed to be. No, it hurt because it was true. "A weapon," I repeated, choking back tears. "Well, I suppose sometimes it feels like it is. After 4000 years of male power, well, this is _my_ power," I spat bitterly.

"Kate..." ventured Em, reaching out to squeeze my elbow, hearing the emotion behind my cavalier words. "This isn't about politics. This is about... God, how do I say this without pissing you off or upsetting you?" She paused, picking her words carefully. "Perhaps _easy_ isn't the right word, with all its 1950s connotations… It's the way, well - You do whatever you feel, all of the time without stopping to worry about it. I think you're probably the most uninhibited person I've ever met, and I'm a bit... well, cautious, because for me, everything is quite complicated. Sex is just... I don't know. Something more. I'm trying very hard not to sound moralistic here, Kate, because, honestly, I'm not."

"No, I understand. We're staring at each other from opposite sides of the Madonna-Whore complex. You're the nice, good girl, and I'm… I'm easy."

"Kate, I didn't mean it like that," Em protested, narrowing her eyebrows and bristling at the allegation, and I instantly felt contrite for the callous joke.

"Of course it's easy at the time," I sighed. "But you're right - it _is_ complicated, and you _do_ have to think about the consequences. I mean, two years ago, to this very fucking day… as I was running off with Tristram to do acid and romp on a hillside, if _this_ was what would happen… Well, it's not Ian I regret. You have to understand that. I adore Ian and I don't regret him for a second. But everything else? If someone had told me that I would bear this beautiful, sweet child, only to lose him to a man I can't stand… would I have done it? I don't think I would have."

"You have to appeal for custody," repeated Em. "This just isn't fair."

"I know. I will. I swear I will," I agreed, peering off at the stage, nodding my head in time to the music. "But sometimes, you know - I wonder."

"Wonder what?"

Em wasn't the only person beating bushes around their true emotions. "Sometimes I wonder if sex isn't just another way of keeping people at a distance."

"That's ridiculous!" protested Em, then relented, as if finally admitting something to herself as well as me. "I never learned that part... or perhaps I learned that part all too well and can never do it again." But then she grinned mischievously. "I always thought sex was a way of discovering the most intimate secrets about people." 

I regarded her with a wry smile. "For you, maybe."

Em shook her head slowly, as if she didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"Why do you think it's so easy for me? It's a way of skipping straight to the punchline without having to go through all that vulnerable crap. Instant fake intimacy, without the risks." Em squinted at me, sucking hard on her cigarette. With her hair short and hanging in her face over the fag, she looked almost uncannily like Alex. "Alex was probably the closest friend I ever had who was a man," I finally confessed. "That's not easy for me, you know…" I paused, unsure of her reaction.

"I know," she shrugged. "You two have a lot in common."

"Too much in common," I observed, looking away. Why was I justifying this to Em, of all people. "I mean, at first, it was just a silly crush, you know. A physical thing. Oh god, I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

"No, no. It's good for me to hear this," she assured me, though her voice sounded thick and, well, complicated.

"But the more I found out about him, the more I realised we were alike. I think that scared me, quite honestly. It was easier to think of him as purely the object of a sexual crush than it was to admit that I was actually emotionally intimate with a scary, threatening man."

"Kate," interrupted Em. "I think you're over-analysing things a bit there. I mean, why are men scary and threatening?"

"I..." I paused, staring back at her. "I mean, are we talking about Alex, or are we talking about me?" 

Turning to face me, Em raised one eyebrow as she examined my face. She was easily as tall as I was, which was actually quite reassuring. "You don't need to justify this to me. You can say that you were…" She swallowed nervously before saying the words "…in love and things didn't work out. There's no dishonour in that." This must be killing her to say this. "You forget - Alex talked about you to me more than once whilst you were dating."

I winced visibly. "How can love not be enough? They always tell you that it is supposed to be."

Em took a deep breath. "It's not, in and of itself. Both partners have to be willing to work and compromise."

Biting my lip, I turned away, so she wouldn't see the tears welling up in my eyes. "See, that's it. I've never had that kind of love. Sex? That's easy. But love? The real, lasting, forgiving, flexible, ever-lasting kind? I don't have a clue about that. I mean, look at you. You're _engaged_. To be _married_." The word had a magical aura to it. "That's forever, sweetheart."

"Well, one hopes that it will be," Em added in a self-effacing tone, though her smile spoke volumes. "It takes work." She lit another cigarette off the butt of the last, chain-smoking her way through the conversation. "But is that what you want? I mean, you always seemed to me to be someone who valued their freedom and their independence far too much for that."

"Is it too much to ask that one have a relationship that allows for freedom and independence?"

"But you just don't seem like the marrying kind," shrugged Em.

"What makes you say that?" I accused, trying to keep the hurt out of my voice.

"Well, that's what Alex said…" she hastily added, trying not to appear rude, then suddenly realised that that slip-up had made things worse rather than better.

"Alex said that? Well, what the bloody hell did he know? He was too busy being jealous of fucking ghosts and shadows!" I snapped, injuries long forgotten suddenly brought to light. "I want what you two have!"

"You don't want Alex," she quickly pointed out. Rather too quickly.

"No, of course not," I snapped in defence before anyone could accuse me of anything, then relented. "But I want the stability, though. I want someone who will still be there in the morning, who will still be there the next day and the day after. I don't want to be tied down and caged in, that's true. But I want someone so fucking extraordinary that I forget that there is even anyone else out there. Is that too much to fucking ask?"

"I don't know if that's fair," observed Em, rubbing my shoulders. "I don't know if one ever gets perfection. But you shouldn't place the responsibility for your behaviour on someone else's shoulders. That's not fair to either of you."

"Why not?" I exploded. "It's what men do! _If you were prettier or easier to get along with or not such a damn smart alec, I wouldn't have left you,_ or whatever."

"Kate!" She kept her hands on my shoulders, though I had grown so tight and tense I tried to shrug her off. "When was the last time someone said that to you? I can't even imagine it."

 _Alex. Peter._ All the men I'd ever really cared about. I wanted to throw back at her, but I remained silent. _Of course she couldn't imagine rejection,_ shot back some catty voice inside my head. _No, that's not fair,_ I reminded myself. Her life with Alex had hardly been a straightforward storybook romance, either.

"People - men and women - say those things because of the insecurities in their own heads, more than anything else, I think," explained Em astutely. "It just means that you're not right for each other, and they don't know how to say it. But I do know that when you find what is right for you, you'll know."

"But what if that's not what the other person wants?"

"Then they're not the right person for you," shrugged Em, sounding uncannily wise. "Do you think that's happening with Damien?"

"I have no idea what's happening with fucking Damien," I snapped, far too quickly and defensively to be convincing. "I don't know what Damien wants from me. To tell the truth, I don't even know what he sees in me sometimes," I added morosely. It was the first time in weeks that I had been without him for any period of time, and though the freedom had been intoxicating at first, now I was feeling sullen and miserable and intensely lonely. "Come on, the set is ending. Let's go find Portishead."

Em levelled a steely grey eye at me. "You think I'm going to let you sit through a set of lovelorn torch songs in this sort of a mood? I don't think so. Let's go find Beth and then all of us can get off our heads and dance around madly to Pharmaceutical Brothers and forget about everything. I think you need it!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glastonbury, Part 2. And somewhere in the soggy, rain-soaked fields, between arguments with her baby-daddy and picnics with Slur and Gulp, Kate Gordon realises that she has, properly, for real this time, fallen in love.

I awoke in the strangely familiar confines of my tour bus bunk, my mouth a little dry, but my head mercifully foggy. Climbing down, I padded along the hall to the back lounge to see Em sprawled out across the couch, blinking sleepily as she talked to Maddie.

"This is so much more civilised than camping," announced Em, sitting up, stretching and rubbing her eyes.

"I hear it rained again last night," informed Maddie, peering out between the curtains. "More mud! Hooray! I just hope they don't throw it at us."

"Right, who's for breakfast?" called out Emma as she and Beth burst into the bus. "Hullo, Kate. Croissants or pastries?"

"Croissant, please. What happened last night?" I wondered out loud, sitting down next to Em and accepting a roll.

Beth and Emma exchanged evil looks. "What, Kate, you don't remember getting plastered and jumping up on stage with Primal Scream to check if it was a sock or not?"

"What?!" No, I certainly didn't remember that part.

"Oh, and the pair of little blond bowl cuts from Sweden? You don't remember them?" added Beth.

"Don't listen to them," interrupted Em. "You had another glass of wine and fell asleep backstage. We got two roadies to carry you back to the bus. You had to have been exhausted from running around after Ian all day."

"How un-rock'n'roll!" I exclaimed mournfully, deciding that I liked that option least of the three.

"It's OK," consoled Emma. "We told everyone that it was a heroin overdose to save your reputation."

"Shut up!" I snapped back, tossing a crumb of croissant at her in a friendly joust.

"Cut that out!" warned Maddie, brushing it off her program. "I'm still trying to plan the day's events. We've got to co-ordinate this so carefully if we want to see everyone…"

Her plans were interrupted by a well-aimed pillow from Emma. "The hell with that. So long as we get to our performance OK, who cares what else we see? Let's just wander around - the more interesting stuff happens out in the field, anyway."

Rolling my eyes at the now-familiar argument, I padded to the bathroom with a fresh change of clothes and attempted to scrub some of the previous night's mud from my body. Half an hour later, I could even call myself presentable. At one time, I'd found the modest conveniences of a tourbus bathroom archaic and even barbaric, but now, compared to the primitive conditions of the muddy campground, they seemed palatial.

"Hey, wait up," called Em after me as I set off into the field to find Tristram and Ian.

"I thought you had to work today."

"Not until later. Oh, god, look at that!" Pulling out a camera, she took a shot of the immense field of mud that stood between us and the festival.

"I am prepared!" I assured her, pointing to my foot gear. Although I'd been a bit nervous of pairing my gauzy blue and purple minidress with a pair of motorcycle boots, now I was quite glad of the precaution. "Do you have the Brolly of Joy?"

"I do, indeed," replied Em, waving the purple polka dotted stick in front of us like a sword.

"Right - Kenickie are onstage in ten minutes! Onwards and upwards! Charge!" I yelled, and the two of us took off across the mud like a pair of soldiers going up over the trenches.

Despite the resolutions that we all made every year to catch every band humanly possible, Em and I still ended up wasting half our time wandering about aimlessly, perusing the stalls for jewellery and coloured scarves I ended up wrapping in my hair to keep them out of the mud. With a little prompting, I soon had Em decked out like a proper festival hippie in silver bells, beads, and even a brightly coloured rag hat.

"Just don't tell Kate Sutton you saw me wearing this," she laughed, admiring the way the reddish patches brought out the auburn highlights in her hair.

"What time did Tristram say to meet him?" I worried, searching under the expanse of bracelets for a watch. _When did I start wearing a watch?_ I wondered. My lack of punctuality had always been a running band joke, and something I had viewed as an integral part of my personality until it had started to irritate Damien.

"Soon - we better get going!' warned Em, stopping to pick up a miniature version of the hat she had on in a rich sea blue. "For Ian," she explained guiltily.

There was a joyous reunion between mother and baby in the campground, watched over by a somewhat haggard Tristram. "Watch out - he might be a bit cranky," he warned. "He was up half the night crying."

"Oh no!" I gushed, putting my hand to his tiny forehead. "He's not sick, is he? No, he's not running a fever. I mean, he looks the picture of health."

Tristram shook his head, suddenly looking very small and apologetic. "No, I think he just wanted you."

Em smiled triumphantly, though I tried to keep my smugness to myself. As if in confirmation of his father's words, the moment I took the papoose arrangement and buckled Ian into it, he sighed loudly and settled down for a nap.

"I'd like to have him in bed a little earlier tonight," Tristram's voice floated after us as I walked away, and I nodded agreement, but barely heard him.

It drizzled on and off for most of the afternoon, but between Em's umbrella and my boots, I managed to keep quite dry. Despite the unpleasant weather, there was an amazing feeling of co-operation and collaboration in the air, as if we were all in this together, so why be unpleasant to one another? Even in the huge crowds, we seemed to be continually running into the other Charms, hanging out to watch a set together, then disappearing off again in a different direction.

"So what time is Alex supposed to get here?" I asked Em in anticipation.

She glanced at her watch, her eyebrows knitted together in worry. "He's supposed to be here in time for your set - he promised. Shall we go and check backstage again?"

"If you insist…" I sighed. The backstage area was crawling with all manner of annoying people I'd been hoping to avoid, but unfortunately that was where Alex had agreed to meet Em. No matter how quickly we tried to breeze in and out, someone always managed to hole one or the other of us for some urgently inane conversation before the other one rescued us.

"No sign of him," muttered Em after a cursory check, taking me by the wrist and pulling me out of sight as Bobbie Billions barrelled down towards us. "Let's get out of here before he asks me to do another photo shoot."

"Ah, nice to see you still have some indie cred," I laughed.

"Indie cred has nothing to do with it!" snapped Em. "The last one I did, he never paid, so I withheld the negatives. Simple as that."

"You know, I used to think you were such a softie, but you've grown real, professional claws, haven't you?" I teased.

Em pouted mightily. "I was never a softie," she insisted defensively. "It just took me a while to realise that this could be a full time profession and not some sort of hobby. It took me a while to learn how to juggle the egos, but…"

"Speaking of egos, come on - let's get out of here!" I warned, seeing another notoriously difficult pop star headed out way. "Monaco are on the Other Stage. Come on, please…?"

"Oh god, you and your Peter Hook thing again. Well, at least if Alex shows up, that's the first place he'll head," sighed Em.

Of course we ran into Beth, the other New Order fanatic in the band, and Em offered to hold Ian so that the two of us could cavort around doing our proper little Molly Ringwald 80's dance steps until the rain drove us back to the cover of the umbrella.

"Damn, it's getting late," swore Beth, glancing at Em's watch. "I better get back to the bus and get dressed and put my face on."

"So what kind of freak does that make you before you put your face on? Oh my god, it's the woman with no face - I'm scared!" I teased.

"Shut up! What the hell is going on up in the field up there? I have to get through there to get back to the bus?" demanded Beth, staring up at a crowd of people swirling around what appeared to be a helicopter in the process of taking off or landing.

"Well, let's go see what it is," I suggested.

"Probably some ego-ridden pop star too posh to brave the mud being flown in for the gig," snarled Beth jealously.

"If we could afford a helicopter, you'd do it in a second," I pointed out.

"I think it's landing," observed Em as we drew closer. Em already had her cameras out, snapping photographs, but suddenly she stopped. "Oh my god."

"What?" I demanded.

She handed me the camera with the long-range telephoto lens, and as I peered through it, I realised that the occupants of the helicopter were none other than Keith, Damien and Alex. "Oh my god!"

"I think I'm going to die of embarrassment," blushed Em, rapidly trying to grab the camera back from me as I started to snap photos.

Damien looked, quite honestly, a little green around the gills, as if that method of air travel did not entirely agree with him, but he held up gamely, grinning and waving maniacally. "I can't believe he made it!" I gushed, trying to move closer through the crowd.

I hung back slightly, smiling as I watched Damien cavorting about with his friends. Em was blushing, but she was still working her camera furiously. Suddenly, Damien caught sight of me and broke away from the rest of them, pushing his way through the assembled crowd, catching me around the waist and swinging me about in a mad jig.

"I can't believe you made it!" I repeated, attempting to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him, but Ian, still strapped to my chest, let loose a mighty complaint at being crushed between us. "Oh no, no, no. Don't cry," I urged, forgetting Damien for a moment and concentrating on my son.

"Hullo, who's this?" bellowed Damien, bending over to peer curiously at my passenger. For a moment, I panicked. Well, god, this was the moment of truth, wasn't it? It was well and good for Damien to be OK with the hypothetical idea of a child, but confronted with the actual physical entity, he might be threatened or jealous, and balk at the reality of it. "Look at this handsome young man here! And what a fabulous hat that is. Might I try that on, young sir?" 

Ian looked terrified as Damien swooped closer, but he put on a brave face, as if trying to decide whether the new face was friend or foe. When Damien relieved him of his precious rag hat, his lower lip started to quiver, and I was afraid that he was going to let out a mighty squeal, but in a flash Damien had the hat on his own head and was pulling a pretty fair imitation of Ian's own apprehensive face, his eyes bulging and his lower lip extended. If there was one thing that Ian seemed to love and respond to, it was silly faces, and Damien was a champion of the facial contortion, gurning wildly. The approaching squeal was successfully diverted into a stream of burbling laughter as Ian reached out and attempted to retrieve his hat.

"You're here!" I repeated stupidly, for about the tenth time. I had grown so used to the idea that I would have to brave the festival alone, that now Damien was actually here, it hardly seemed real.

"And a damned hard time I had getting here!" blustered Damien. "I tried to get a hovercraft, but the channel was so rough it turned back a few miles out to sea. I ended up catching a midnight train to France, and then taking the Eurostar. Got home to find car and girlfriend were _missing_ , so I rounded up Alex, who said that a friend of his from the airfield where he keeps his plane had a helicopter. So here I am. And don't let me _ever_ hear you say again that I don't care about you or your career, because hell and high water did indeed come, and I am _here_!"

I grinned, so happy that I could feel my chest literally swelling to accommodate the blissful joy in my heart. "You don't know how happy this makes me!"

"One look at your face, and I think I can imagine." Stopping in his tracks, he pulled me to face him, staring down at my hesitant grin for a moment, bending forward to kiss my forehead, then carefully reaching over Ian to press his lips against mine. "And Alex wasn't even here, so you can't tell me that you felt like a third wheel around Em and him," he added in a playfully mocking tone.

I felt my hackles rise, but I refused to rise to the bait, knowing that any reaction I showed would only add fuel to his case. "Actually, Em and I had a wonderful girls night out without you," I shrugged, perfectly calmly.

"Did you?" Damien looked disappointed, almost jealous, before covering it with a leer. "Well, I'm glad to hear that. Really I am."

"You're just jealous that we had a better time without you than we would have had you been here," I taunted.

"I… I…" Damien's jaw flopped around indignantly for a few moments before seeing the spark of mirth in my eyes. "Bitch!"

"Not in front of the K.I.D." I warned, darting out of the way of his tickling hands. "Damn, I need to get his bottle back from Em…" I turned to find Em and Alex deeply engaged in a couple moment, with Alex attempting to steal Em's new hat, holding it just out of her reach before plopping it on his own head. "Em!" I called, loathe to interrupt them. "Do you have Ian's bottle?"

Extricating herself from Alex's grasp, she dug in her camera bag. "Tell Alex to give me back my hat. If he wants one of his own, let him brave the mud flats!"

"Actually, it's quite fetching on him, really," I observed. "It makes you look a bit like a young Keith Richards, Alex."

"Uergh!" ejected Alex disdainfully, immediately placing the hat back on Em's head. "I fucking hate the Rolling fucking Stones!"

"Shh! Not in front of the K.I.D!" warned Damien, clocking him a friendly blow on the side of the head. "May I?" he asked politely, relieving Em of the bottle.

"What?" I asked. He pointed hopefully to Ian. "Um… I don't know." I had been worried about how Ian would react to so many unfamiliar people in such a short time, but he seemed to be handling it well, being the extremely extroverted and easy-going child that he was. "I suppose so…"

Carefully, I surrendered my child to Damien, hovering over them protectively, though Damien seemed to be an old pro, cradling him in the crook of one arm as he administered the bottle with the other.

"Who would have thought?" whispered Em, nudging me in the arm as she surreptitiously snapped a shot of the two of them enjoying their male bonding moment.

"Watch out, Damien, my friend," warned Keith, coming up behind him and slapping him heartily on the back. "This is how it starts, you know. You're about the right age. One of your friends asks you to hold one for a moment, and next thing you know, you look in those big blue eyes, and you're hooked!" He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. " _Child envy!_ You'll find yourself slowing down as you drive past nursery schools, trying to figure out how you can kidnap one of your own."

"What are you talking about, Keef? You've got at least four of your own," snorted Damien, trying to maintain his hard, laddish exterior with a cooing baby tucked under his arm.

"Exactly! And how do you think that happened? It all started with a friend who asked my missus to watch hers for a day, and then the next thing you know, badda-boom, badda-bing, there's little Lily and Alfie in the pram," Keith countered.

"It doesn't seem so bad," argued Damien. "I've seen you with yours at games - you all seem to enjoy it. I think I could get into all that Dad stuff. Take him to football matches, teach him how to ride a bike, buy him a couple of puppies, all that crap. I can handle that."

"Oh, it's all very nice when it's someone else's," Keith warned. "When you can give it back to its owner when it misbehaves. It's different when it's actually yours."

Damien grew suddenly very quiet, clinging to the child in his arms with an unreadable expression. Was I hearing this right? The man who, only a few months earlier had joked about genetic investment and biological justifications for sexual jealousy was now talking about taking my son to football games? 

"He's _Kate's_ ," Damien finally insisted, letting the rest of the sentiment go unsaid as he fixed Keith with a strange expression that I could not understand, but that made Keith immediately shut up.

"You should get going - you have to be onstage soon," reminded Em, dragging my attention back to the gig, though I wanted nothing more than to pin Damien down and make him explain exactly what he meant by that last statement.

Slowly but purposely, the large gang of us, which was beginning to feel more like an extended family out on a picnic than a loose group of pop stars, artists and actors, made our way over to the backstage.

"Where the hell have you been?" fussed Amy the moment I walked through the security gate. "We're in trouble - there's no soundcheck."

"That's Glasto," I shrugged. "How can we soundcheck when there's still another band onstage?"

"Shit, I think it's going to start to rain again," moaned Beth, bemoaning the state of the close-fitting dress she had just donned.

"It doesn't matter - my misses is bringing a huge tarp we can spread out and sit on to keep our bottoms off the mud," offered Keith. "Where is she? I hope she and the kids didn't get stuck in traffic."

"Kate! Come on!" called Emma. "Where the hell is your bass? Bob the Roadie couldn't find it to put it out onstage."

"Bloody hell, I snarled, digging in the pile of equipment for my very distinctive Rickenbacker case, still covered in purple glitter from a long-forgotten accident with a bottle of nail varnish. "Like he could miss this? Fuck, it's nowhere near in tune. Where's Ian?"

"I've got him," assured Damien.

"Here, take the papoose so you don't lose it. I can hardly go onstage wearing it," I ordered, wrapping it around his neck. Ian reached for the bass, but I had to untangle his sticky baby fingers from the strings so that I could get it tuned up.

"Kate!" howled Maddie from somewhere off to my side. Why did it always have to be such a madhouse before a gig of this magnitude? You'd have thought they'd be better organised as they got bigger. "Are you ready?"

"No, I'm not ready," I muttered. "But it doesn't look like I have a choice…"

As I headed for the stage, wrapping the strap of my bass around my neck, Ian suddenly realised that I was leaving and let out an enormous wail. "No, no, shhhhh! Mummy has to go to work," soothed Damien in an attempt to calm him, but he was inconsolable.

"Hang on!" I yelled back at my bandmates, dashing back to Damien's side and relieving him of the squalling infant, pushing my bass out of the way to clutch him to my neck. "Hush, hush, Ian," I chanted, bouncing him up and down desperately. At that moment, the inclement rain abated and the clouds finally parted, a tiny ray of sunlight making its way down to earth, to bathe the festival grounds in a warm glow. I don't know if it was my presence or the warm ray of light touching Ian's face, but he immediately quieted down, ceasing his crying and even venturing a shy smile.

"Kate!" called Em from the wings. I turned to her with an expectant smile, to be greeted by a click from that familiar mechanical eye permanently attached to her face. "Do you want me to take him?"

I shook my head as Beth gestured wildly from the stage. "Kate!"

Still clinging to Ian, I ventured out onto the stage, waving lazily at the crowd. "I'm sorry," I apologised quietly into the microphone, alarmed at how my voice echoed throughout the fields. "It's my son, Ian. Separation anxiety, you know?" The crowd sighed in sympathy as Ian turned around to survey the gathered masses. "It's Ian's first Glastonbury, you know."

There was a chorus of "Hi, Ian!" and "Me, too!" from the punters, and I felt my heart swell with pride.

"Can you start the song without me? I'll be back in a minute," I asked, and Maddie flipped the switch on the drum machine beside her, kicking into a lazy beat as I ran over to the side of the stage, handing Ian back to Damien. "He wanted to go on stage - that's all. Can you believe it?" I gushed.

"He really is your son, isn't he?" laughed Damien, trying to untangle Ian's fingers from the scarves in my hair.

"Sorry about that," I giggled into the microphone as I ran back over onto the stage, then looked up at the unprecedented sight of the sun pouring down over the sodden festival goers. "There goes my son, but here comes the sun, indeed," I laughed, snickering at my own stupid pun.

Beth was laughing uncontrollably. I had thought she would be upset at the amount of attention Ian had distracted, but she seemed amused by it. "Shall we begin?"

Guitar, bass and vocals all exploded at once, cascading into a gorgeous chorus of sound. The few hectic rehearsals of the previous week had proved effective in dragging us kicking and screaming from being a rag-tag bunch of distracted and out-of-practice musicians into a band that moved like a single unit, gliding seamlessly through new material, then breaking into exciting new takes on familiar favourites. 

The crowd were on their feet, basking in the sunshine, hands and faces waving in the breeze like so many stalks of wheat. Off to the side of the stage, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Damien standing with Ian up on one shoulder, grinning with pride as he pointed me out to my son. Just behind them, I could make out Alex trying to distract Em from her cameras by leading her in a crazy dance, half waltz on her part as she tried to balance her equipment, and half frenzied jitterbug on his part. Eventually, she gave up, put the cameras down on the ground and joined him in a cosy-looking slow dance, laughing as she rested her head on his shoulder.

Dragging my attention back to the music, I started to hop up and down in time to the swelling backbeat of our new single, skipping over to Maddie and leaping up onto the drum riser, balancing for a few moments before I let myself fall back to the stage again.

"I'd like to see you do that again, but with a backflip," teased Emma, hissing just over the volume of the stage monitors. This was, unfortunately, the part of the band that never quite came across on the records - the way we flipped running commentary back and forth under the music.

"Oh yeah? I bet I can," boasted Beth, never one to let anyone else upstage her.

"Don't you dare!" hissed Maddie from behind the drum riser.

"You'll show your knickers to 40,000 people if you do," I warned.

"Well, why not? Kate's already shown her knickers to 35,000 people and counting," snickered Emma.

"No I haven't," I protested, with an evil grin. "Cause I'm not wearing any knickers! Har har!"

"Eew! Eew! That was _way_ too much information!" spat Emma, turning back to her mic with a disgusted grin, just in time to join in for the chorus again.

For the last verse of the last song, we dropped the instruments out, carrying the song just on four-part harmony. Emma was waving her hands above her head while I did a little dance, and Beth begged everyone to sing along, which, much to our surprise, they actually did. I had never heard a sound quite like 40,000 people singing along in unison, and to be quite honest, the sound made all the hairs along the back of my neck stand up. 

As the last notes echoed about the fields and hillsides, the clouds closed over the sun, and thunder started to rumble ominously in the background. It didn't actually start to pour with rain again until at least ten minutes into the next act, but the seeds of a legend had already been planted.

"That was the Charms, ladies and gentlemen," blared an annoucement. "Or should we say, rain charms! How did you manage that little piece of earth magic, there?"

"Sold our souls," burped Emma into the microphone.

It was just an innocent little bit of fun at the time, but the rumours would grow until they took on a life of their own, about how we had conducted a secret satanic ritual in the stone circle to ensure that we would be the sole act whose performance was not marred by a single drop of rain.

With Damien by my side, I was ready to brave the disorienting world of backstage, acknowledging compliments of our performance with relieved laughter. No ego, no matter how large, could possibly bother me with Damien's hand squeezing mine in solidarity, and Ian's tiny arms wrapped about my neck. Pushing my way through the crowd, swollen by the rain outside, I tried to find our little gang again. They were gathered off in a far corner on a small circle of folding chairs, veggie burgers and glasses of wine balanced on knees while Keith rough-housed on the ground with his kids.

"Kate, Kate!" called Em, motioning to a spare seat beside her. "I saved you a spot. That was fantastic!"

"What about me?" protested Damien, looking about forlornly.

"You can find your own chair," laughed Em.

"No, you sit down, I'll sit on your lap," I directed, and Damien instantly brightened.

"All three of you? You're going to break it!" warned Kate Sutton, leaning forward from behind Em and waving.

"Never mind, I'll steal one from Catatonic," snickered Damien, sneaking off on a reconnaissance mission before pilfering a seat and jogging back before someone caught him.

"Speaking of stealing, are you ever going to give me back my rubber bondage gear that you borrowed for the film?" demanded Kate.

"Nope!" snapped Damien shortly, his grin speaking for itself. Damien loved the rubber shirt far more than I suspected was healthy.

"When did you get here, Kate?" I changed the subject tactfully, looking around for her other half. 

"Two songs into your set, unfortunately," she sighed. "We were trying to get here earlier, but of course Jarvis didn't listen to me and we got stuck in traffic. There's a phenomenal traffic jam backed all the way up to the motorway…"

"She likes the traffic jam excuse, doesn't she?" I giggled in Em's ear.

"Oh, yes, it's one of her favourites," Em agreed. "She will just never admit that she's chronically late."

"There is _so_ a traffic jam!" Kate insisted indignantly. "Isn't there, Jarvis?"

"So how long are you here for? They're playing tomorrow, aren't they?" I ventured.

"Oh, we're staying overnight, yes. We decided to do the whole festival experience and rough it. But god, what a year to pick to do it, eh?" she sighed, squinting out through the open door of the voluminous orange tent at the dismal weather outside.

"Did I miss something or did Dolce & Gabbana start making tents?" I teased, leaning forward to help myself to a glass of wine.

Em suppressed a snicker, giggled a bit, then put her hand to her mouth, looking at her friend guiltily while Kate huffed. "We rented a camper van, I'll have you know!"

"Oh, that's really roughing it, Kate," chortled Em.

"It is! I mean look at this - look at what I'm wearing!" Kate demanded in an outraged tone of voice, standing up so we could see the level of untidiness to which she was reduced.

"Are those LaCroix cargo pants?" inquired Em, squinting at the expensive designer approximation of festival gear.

"Ooh, you two are ganging up on me, again. It's not fair."

"It's perfectly fair, considering you and Kate usually gang up on me," retorted Em, lighting two cigarettes and handing one to the indignant fashion designer. "Where are the rest of the Charms? I'm quite excited about how the photos are going to come out. The sun was doing some interesting things while you were playing. I think I might actually have got one with a rainbow caused by refraction of the moisture drops still in the air."

Turning around, I looked behind me to see that Beth and Maddie had been pinned down by journalists with cameras, but Emma had made her way clear through to the bar. "I should at least put in an appearance, I suppose," I sighed guiltily.

"Oh, don't," snorted Kate. "Stay here and gossip with us. Did you see what Tori Amos went onstage wearing? It's an outrage. The woman may have a beautiful voice, but she dresses like a bag lady. _Really_."

"Potato salad?" suggested Damien at my shoulder. I turned to find that he had disappeared on another of his reconnaissance missions without my even noticing, and had returned bearing two large plates loaded with goodies from the backstage buffet.

"Thank you, dear." Now it really did seem more like a family picnic than a music festival. Any minute now one of the older relatives was going to get drunk and…

"Come here, baby, I just want to talk to you!" drawled an audibly plastered male voice doing its best to affect a Southern accent.

"I don't think so, maybe another time," suggested Beth diplomatically, then turned around and, in as dignified manner as possible under the circumstances, made a mad dash for the safety of our table.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked.

"One of the Alabama 3 has taken a shine to me, shall we say," squealed Beth in a clearly terrified voice. "He was going on and on about wanting to make me his child bride and taking me away to the wild west - though I don't think he's ever actually been any further west than Hammersmith!"

"Oh, I dunno, he's kinda cute in a toothless, inbred sort of way," laughed Kate.

"Oh god, any minute, I thought I was going to hear Duelling Banjos! Oh, give us some of that wine!" Perching on the edge of my knee, Beth found herself a glass and helped herself to the last of the bottle. "Oops, hope no one was saving that. Any chairs left?"

Jarvis leapt to his feet. "Take mine. I have to go back to the camper and get another few bottles of wine now, apparently." With a swift kiss for Kate, he disappeared, followed by Alex. Out of nowhere, Maddie appeared, perching on the edge of Beth's chair, and with the clink of plastic tumblers full of cheap wine, the whole gang of us got down to some serious gossip.

There was a tap on my shoulder, and suddenly I looked up into the familiar face of Rob Sugarpussy. "Rob!" I exclaimed, leaping up to greet him.

"I just ran into John Heppen - hanging out with Thurston and Kim - and he told me you lot were here!" Rob name-dropped shamelessly.

"Are you playing? I didn't see Tractor on the bill!" I asked hopefully, suddenly wondering whatever had happened to the clueless singer who had stood me up for a Danish supermodel, leaving me free to go home with Damien that first, furtive night. If I ever saw him again, I would thank him.

"Tractor broke up," he sighed. "Jon Tractor moved to Denmark, for some reason or other. I've gone over to the dark side, and I'm working for the enemy now. I'm here as an A&R Scout for MVC Records. Where are the rest of the girls?"

"I think Emma and Maddie are over by the buffet table. Why don't you go over and say hello?" I suggested, sinking back down into my seat, and edging a little closer to Damien, then realising how rude it had been to not introduce them as Damien glared at me reproachfully. "Old friends from New York," I shrugged guiltily.

"Oh?" He looked blank.

"You've met him before. He was at Carlos' party. You remember Carlos' party," I reminded him, rubbing my leg up against his with a suggestive smirk.

Before Damien had a chance to respond, someone else had worked their way over to our table, squatting down beside my chair and extending an arm along the back of my chair. "Great set - I love the new material," he slurred, and I turned to see the boy in the stripey trousers, his hair mussed, his eyes a little too dilated, even for the half light of the backstage tent.

"Thanks," I murmured non-committaly, trying to edge away from him, as I could smell the potsmoke on his clothes and the alcohol on his breath.

"So, uh, you fancy coming back to my tourbus for some... private entertainment, then, Kate Gordon?" He just about managed to focus his soft, puppydog brown eyes together for the proposition, pushing his hair out of his eyes with what he probably reckoned was an irresistible smolder.

There was a time when that would have been the most exciting proposition of the festival, but mostly it just made me want to laugh. "I'm sorry, I really don't think so." 

"Ah, you don't mean that. Come on back with me." The arrogance on his face was almost palpable, and for a moment I thought he was going to reach out and actually grab me.

As he moved closer, I reached out and took Damien by the hand and gave him a quick squeeze, coughing gently and shooting him a pleading glance. This would really be a good moment for him to speak up and establish his territorial rights, but he was too deeply engrossed in a conversation with the newly returned Jarvis about the alcohol choices to notice. The young pop star, pretty though he was, was so slow to take the hint, that I decided to spell it out. "I'm sorry... I'm _with_ someone."

The boy in the striped trousers followed my gaze, his face twisted with confusion as he saw Damien. "With _him_? A pretty girl like you... with that ugly tosser? I don't get it."

That was it. I was taking the kid glove off. Bending in closer, I smiled viciously and stage-whispered. "Because he's got a massive fucking cock. And you..." I let my eyes slide down across the crotch of his trousers, which were so tight they left little to the imagination. "Don't."

He stood up as if he'd been slapped. "Bitch!" Almost immediately, his pretty face twisted into an ugly sneer. "You're not all that anyway, saggy-tit bitch."

At that moment, Damien finally decided to join the conversation, squeezing my hand back. "Oh yes she most definitely is _all_ that. Best tits in London, mate, they're 100% real, and they're 100% mine, so push off."

"I would have appreciated that about five minutes ago," I complained as the young man beat a hasty retreat.

"Sorry, I thought you were enjoying the attention. Wouldn't have dreamed of coming between you and your fans."

I rolled my eyes and was about to complain, but someone called my name and I turned to see Em waving wildly. "Can we adjourn to somewhere a little more private? If one more person asks me to take their bloody photo, I'm going to go Gallivant on their arse! I'm here to take concert shots of some friends, not to play society photographer to BritPop wannabes," she snarled, her face frozen in a strangely disparate but obviously forced charming grin.

"What a good idea," I agreed. "Come on." In a large group, the whole gaggle of us moved off into the field, giggling and clinging to each other in the rain before reaching the relative peace of the grove of trees where Jarvis and Kate had parked their enormously luxurious camper van.

"You call this roughing it?" exclaimed Damien, exchanging the bottle of wine that Jarvis had given him for a tumbler of vodka.

"As close to roughing it as I ever intend on getting," snorted Jarvis.

"Ah, that's cause you're from Sheffield. See, if you were from Leeds, you'd be a real man," taunted Damien, in a fair imitation of the type of bully that probably used to pick on the both of them for being shy, library-lurking bookworms in industrial northern towns.

"Oh, no!" interjected Kate. "Not this again, I just can't stand it! If you're going to start with that, then go out in the field with the soccer hooligans."

About an hour later, the party started to break up, some of us headed for the Jesus and Mary Chain, and some headed for Tricky. Pushing Beth off my lap, I turned to find Damien lying sprawled out in his deck chair, snoring quietly, with Ian spread-eagled on his chest, both of them out cold in the blissful sleep of infants.

"Em, do you have your camera?" I asked in a hushed tone, pulling her aside by the sleeve.

"Of course I have my camera. Why?" She turned, following the point of my finger. "Well, isn't that the most adorable thing you've ever seen…"

"I'll meet you out in the field," I told Em, then bent over to softly shake Damien. "Damien…" I urged, brushing a piece of cloth across his nose and his lips. He sneezed, and I repeated the process until he returned to consciousness. "Damien, wake up. We have to get moving."

"Huh? Wha? Why?" Damien shook his head, cradling Ian against his chest.

"We have to give the baby back," I insisted.

"We do? Why? Can't we keep him?" He actually sounded genuinely disappointed.

"I wish we could," I replied, my voice choking with emotion. "But he has to go back to his father."

"Damn." Damien's face clouded with unreadable emotion. "I really rather like the little ankle-biter."

"So do I, Damien, so do I," I sighed, holding out my hand and helping Damien to his feet.

I held out my arms for Ian, but Damien seemed unwilling to part with him. "Is there any way to appeal the decision?"

"There has to be."

"We have to do it. It's important."

_We?_ I stared at Damien curiously. I'd always viewed it as my fight, and my fight alone. Was he offering to help? Why? Reaching out, he took my hand in his and squeezed it, as the two of us walked out to the campsite in silence.

"Hullo…" I called into Tristram's tent, surprised to see that he wasn't outside.

"Oh," stuttered Tristram, clambering to his feet and emerging from the tent. "You're on time. I wasn't expecting you to be."

"Oh, gee, your faith in me is astounding," I deadpanned.

"Punctuality has never been your strong suit," he drawled, then noticed that I was not holding Ian, and looked around wildly until his eyes came to rest on Damien, his face clouding with suspicion.

"Hullo. I don't think we've met," started Damien, extending his hand in greeting. "I'm Damien. Kate's partner." A warm glow lit in the bottom of my stomach at that description. Partner. I liked that word. It didn't sound as juvenile as boyfriend, or as terrifying as lover or spouse or anything like that. Partner. It made us sound like equals, and I liked that. "I have to tell you that your son is an utter angel. We've been having a fantastic time, haven't we, Ian?" Unfastening the papoose from around his neck, Damien cradled Ian in his arms as he handed him back to his father.

"Um, thank you. I'm Tristram, by the way," he added, looking completely unprepared for this eventuality, shooting me a look that could almost be considered one of betrayal. "Ian's _father_."

I had almost been steeling myself for a scene from Damien, but he had put on his most charming face and was acting the utter gentleman. "Lovely to meet you, Tristram. It's easy to see now where Ian gets his sunny disposition from. Anyway, we're off to catch some of our friends' set at the festival, but I hope to see you again tomorrow."

"Erm, likewise," stuttered Tristram, though it was obvious from his face that the sentiments were not mutual.

"Are you staying for tomorrow?" I asked hesitantly.

Tristram nodded half-heartedly, looking back and forth between Damien and I, noting the familiar attitude with which Damien had taken my hand again. "I was hoping… well, never mind. We'll split the afternoon; you can pick him up around two. But I'd like to leave before nightfall - beat the traffic jam."

"Ok," I agreed. "We can do that." It seemed so bizarre to be standing here, having this completely normal conversation with him, when a few months ago we had been tearing each other's characters apart in a court of law. Did I really want to go back to that? More importantly, did I really want to put Ian through that? Things were so pleasant and so civil now - Tristram was letting me have visitation rights above and beyond what he owed me - if I asked for more, I felt inclined that he might even conceded them.

But as I walked away, I suddenly recoiled. No, this wasn't right, that I had to beg him for what should be mine both naturally and by law. Even if he let me see Ian every day of the week, he still had the legal power to take that away from me at the snap of his fingers. No, I didn't want to be dependant on the whims and mood swings of a jealous ex-boyfriend.

"Penny for your thoughts," Damien suddenly ventured, squeezing my hand as we turned around a bend in the path and spilled out into the audience for the Third Stage.

"Nothing, really," I sighed, turning towards him to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. "And thank you for being so diplomatic with Tristram."

Damien shrugged, but beamed. "I often find it effective, if you're dealing with people you think might be difficult, to just mention in advance that you expect them to behave nicely, and then oddly, they do behave nicely. The power of positive thinking."

I smiled, and said nothing, but inside, I couldn't help but think, damn, Damien would make an amazing father. Why oh why couldn't Ian be his, instead of Tristram's?

We held hands as we walked back down towards the stage, only to find that the Jesus and Mary Chain had already started playing.

"Damn, it looks like we've missed half the set already. Oh wait, what is this?" I cocked my head, pushing forward through the throngs of people to get closer to the stage. "Oh my god, they're playing _Just Like Honey!_ I can't believe it!" Bopping up and down excitedly, I started to sing along, then turned back to Damien. "Oh my god, I think this is the video I watched when I first ever actually realised what sex was. Well, I mean, obviously I knew what sex was, but, it was the first song that made me ever actually want it, right now, with them."

"Oh, really?" replied Damien with a raised eyebrow and lascivious grin. That had got his attention. Craning his neck, he peered at the stage, then turned back to me with a quizzical expression. "Sullen, Scots Bob Dylan lookalikes?"

"Well, no, you see, back when I was a teenager, they were four young men in very tight leather trousers rolling around on the ground begging to be my plastic toy while the word _'candy'_ was projected over their heads. It sort of left an impression."

Damien caught me around the waist, pulling me in front of him and swaying his hips behind mine, his arms wrapped around me and his chin resting on my shoulder as we watched the band. "So what is it with you and leather trousers, anyway? Do you think I should get a pair?"

I nearly burst out laughing at the image. "Don't you dare! You'd look ridiculous."

"Alright. How about I buy you a pair of leather trousers, then?"

"What on earth for?"

"So I can be your plastic toy, like in the song?" He paused. "Or you can be my plastic toy, whatever you like." His voice dropped as I did not respond, wrapped up in the band onstage. "Or are you just trying to imply that I'm not as ridiculously sexy as that lot strutting up there." He said it like he was joking, but there was an edge of slight hurt behind the words.

Wriggling around in his grasp, I turned to face him, staring into the huge, deep blue pools of his eyes, my back to the band, the festival and the rest of the world, seeing nothing but his face, hovering pale and moon-like before my eyes. He was standing above me on the slope, so for once I had to look up to gaze into his eyes. As a teenager discovering the twin powers of sex and music for the first time, I had often imagined my dream lover, tall, thin, with terrifyingly sharp cheekbones and a slightly effeminate air - never once had I pictured the small, dark, stocky, bull-headed man with the piercing eyes that now stood with his arms around my waist.

"Is that what you really want? A man like that; a plastic toy?" probed Damien. "Someone stupid and pretty and biddable to fulfill your every wish without ever once challenging or questioning you?" His mouth was smiling but his eyes were terribly serious. "Should I dumb myself down and pretend to be an idiot, maybe start dabbling in Class A pharmaceuticals, perhaps? Is that what would turn you on?"

"Of course not. Where is this coming from?" I stuttered, shaking my head in confusion, wondering if the lad backstage had bothered him more than he admitted. He shrugged, then sighed deeply, his eyebrows knitted together in deep thought. I didn't like to see Damien looking so out of sorts; it seemed unnatural compared to his usual gruff but good-humoured demeanour. "Damien," I ventured, leaning forward to go eyeball to eyeball with him, before depositing a kiss on the tip of his nose.

"You've always met me on my turf, but before this, I've never been on yours. I don't think I've ever seen you in your natural environment, that's all."

"You call this natural?"

"Well, no," he confessed, his eyes still boring into mine. "But seeing you on stage, it's like…" His voice trailed off as he searched for the metaphor. "It's like the Wizard of Oz, but in reverse. Like I've been watching you in colour for all this time, and then suddenly you're in black and white."

"Shallow and one dimensional?" I sighed.

"No, no…" Damien shook his head, frowning deeply. "Like those old 30's movies, all shining, pristine glamour with that strangely boosted contrast. The heroine would walk across the screen in a black gown, and she wouldn't just be blonde, she'd be _supernaturally_ blonde… I can't explain it." His face was twisted, as if in some inexplicable agony, and his voice trailed off in frustration. He was forever grasping concepts in his head that he was somehow unable to articulate verbally.

"What, you think I'm different, when I'm onstage?"

"It's not that you're different, it's that you _appear_ differently. It's like... I'm used to you as a flesh and blood human woman, but when you're onstage, you're some kind of goddess. You go from being the girl next door to being, like... the Blessed Virgin Mary."

"Our act is hardly virginal," I started to laugh, but his face stopped me.

"No, but I mean, you're superhuman, otherworldly. Almost… _holy_."

I peered into his face, trying to read his vivid blue eyes. "Holy...? No one has ever called me that before. In fact the nuns used to say I was the devil incarnate, and I made the Blessed Virgin Mary weep..." Something in the back of my head suddenly jogged into place. "Damien, are you Catholic?"

"Hah," he guffawed, then made a face. "Does it show?"

"Your work makes so much more sense now."

"Well, I was raised Catholic. But it's a bit like alcoholism, really, or cancer or something. If you were raised as one, you can be Catholic, or you can be a recovering Catholic, but you can never really be, you know, _not_ Catholic."

"I know exactly what you mean."

"What? Oh. Nuns? You too, huh? Catholic school?"

"Hey, don't get the wrong idea. It's not like I'm practicing or anything. I mean, you know I'm on birth control pills - fuck, I've even had an abortion. It's just more like... when we moved to the States, I think it was a way for my mother to hold on to some of our cultural identity. It's part of how I was raised to think of myself, part of who I was raised to be."

He nodded slowly. "I think it was the same for my mum - though obviously, she and the Church parted ways when she got divorced. In a way, I think that Feminism took its place for her, during the 80s, but..."

"Your mum is a feminist?" I didn't know why that surprised me so much.

"Ardent," Damien nodded. "Germaine Greer books at the kitchen table."

I smiled. "She raised you well. I think I like her already."

"It's funny, though, even though she ditched everything except a very superficial Catholicism, I think she still prays to the Blessed Virgin Mary."

"For what?"

"Ha, mainly that I'll meet a nice Catholic girl and settle down..."

Blushing, I looked down at my feet.

"But, I dunno. That's what you remind me of, when you're onstage. A goddess."

I rolled my eyes. "But that's the problem. Blokes always fall for that perfect, inhuman goddess onstage. And I can't live up to that. I'm this messy, complicated, imperfect human being with human faults and human flaws. And they don't want to deal with that."

A horror-struck expression came over Damien's face. "No, that's not what I'm saying at all."

"Then what are you saying?"" I asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer, raising my hands to his face and running my fingers over the dark stubble on his cheeks. This was always the problem - men went to bed with the golden goddess on the stage and then woke in the morning, with me. How could they help but be disappointed?

"That goddess onstage - she terrifies me. I don't know her. At all. I know _you_. Messy, complicated, surreal, funny, arrogant, insecure... saggy tits and all..." If he hadn't flashed such a mischievous smile at that, I'd have hit him, but I pulled away. Was that really how he saw me? "Sometimes, I just think, you can't possibly be real. There's no possible way this can be happening." My heart sank in my chest, all my fears made tangible and brought to life. "You're _too_ perfect, too right for me. It can't be true." He paused, biting his lip, his eyes searching mine. "And then other times, I think that you are the only thing in my life that is real, that is worthwhile." Pushing me away, he turned aside, staring out into the darkness at the edge of the fields.

"What are you going on about? Why won't you just come out and say what you mean?" I demanded, beginning to grow afraid. He remained silent, chewing on the ragged edge of a fingernail. "Are you saying you don't like me, when I'm like this? Because this is part of who I am, this band and the music and performing and everything."

"No!" He threw his hands in the air in desperation, raising his eyes skyward. "You never listen to a word I say, do you? You just hear what your own fucking insecurities want me to be saying. There isn't the fucking clumsy, inadequate word yet invented to express how I feel about you. Four letters? How are four letters supposed to express all of this. Love means absolutely anything people want it to mean!"

"Love?" I stuttered. I hated the word, and all the expectations that came with it. "What are you saying? You do or you don't? I listen to every word that comes out of your mouth, I just can't fit them together in a way that isn't completely ambiguous and self-contradictory."

"Completely ambiguous and self contradictory?" mused Damien. "They should put that on my tombstone."

"What are we doing?" I asked in a small voice, suddenly very afraid of being alone, wishing only that Damien would come back and wrap his arms around me and make everything alright again. "Are we fighting? What the hell are we fighting about?"

"I don't want to fight," Damien assured me, moving back towards me as if drawn by magnetism, then slowly, tentatively pulling me towards me and crushing me in his embrace. As soon as I felt his hands on my hair, smelled the slightly smoky male scent of his body, the turmoil in my mind calmed somewhat. "Let's go and see Slur. I want to go back and watch my best mate's band, and watch you dancing around with your friends, and see that little smile of contentment dusted across your lips like you're actually really, genuinely happy. That's all I want."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Charms' second album finally comes out, to, well... mixed reviews. And to make the drugs-fuelled record release party even more awkward for Kate Gordon, aggro-zombie Thom Eboracum of Radioshack gives her a hard time about her social circle, then starts taking pot-shots at her in the music press.

Record release parties. If they are anything like giving birth, I could understand why younger children are so neurotic. The first one is always flash and glam and _Yes, darling, anything that you want,_ from the record company. The second one is _Oh, are you still around? It won't be as good as the first time, so we'll just see what we can rustle up in the meantime_.

Although it had been tempting to pull some sort of prima donna act and take 4 years to mix our follow-up, like, say, the Concrete Garden, My Time Of Dying or Plastique, we had all decided that it was better to just get the thing out there and get our name back in the record review columns instead of the gossip columns. Somehow, the record company had pulled a single out of the tangled mass of conflicted emotions, and it had placed quite high in the midweek charts, in the respectable mid-teens.

Damien had beaten around the bush, hinted, and done just about everything short of directly come out and beg if he could do the video, but _Something's Wrong_ had been handed off to some slick production team, and the four of us had flown back to New York for a tense and harrowing weekend of shooting in the Port Authority bus terminal - always one of my favourite places on earth to hang around for extended periods of time after-hours.

The director had somehow managed to borrow two cars of an IRT train and had the endless criss-crossing access ramps of the terminal blocked off for our use, so from 10pm until 5am on a Sunday night, the four of us paced back and forth across platforms, sat in empty trains and mimed the words while the backing track blared and the cameras rolled. How Beth could stand this for weeks at a time, I did not know, but at least her recent "Hollywood" experience had given her the poise and professionalism to pull us all through, muttering as we were about the indignity of having to wear winter coats in 80 degree weather because the director wanted a cold, "winter" atmosphere.

But as we had sat in the Destructive offices in Camden, sipping our white wine spritzers and giggling as we squeezed into the black leather couches opposite the wide-screen television, we had to admire the way the video had caught the edgy, tense atmosphere behind the joyful throbbing beat of the song. It was that skittering, nervous spider crawling across a 12-string that the director had chosen to highlight, catching the unspoken panic behind the song and personifying it in the subway nightmare of 4 young women caught in an endless detour through the underground warren of the subway system. The annoyance we had all felt at the ridiculous shooting hours had somehow translated into the frustration of commuters stranded in a hostile world of bureaucracy and train delay, giving the video its edgy feel.

Obviously, it was not what the record company had intended, packing us off to get packaged as some shiny, happy pop group, but we were delighted with the results, declaring it our second favourite, after Em Evesham's video that they'd unceremoniously canned. And apparently, the networks shared our favourable opinion, quickly slotting it into a fairly regular rotation.

The record was so different from the first, people didn't quite know what to make of it at first. _Meet The Charms_ had been bubbling, effervescent bubblegum pop, infectiously catchy. In contrast, _Beyond The Valley Of The Charms_ was darker, denser and much more claustrophobic. It definitely still had the hooks, it was still a pop album - just - but it was something that pulled the listener in on repeated plays, rather than something that gave its secrets up immediately.

By the time our release party came around, we were still feeling a bit nervous, wondering if anyone was going to buy the damn thing, even if only through curiosity. Advance reviews had been mixed, but if we succeeded in confusing the press, at least that was a fairly positive sign that they hadn't already completely dismissed us as hopeless has-beens. Half the journalists seemed disappointed that it wasn't another big pop production, that there wasn't another Ice Cream Saturday immediately apparent on first listen. But, hearteningly, the other half - many of them critics who had written our first album off as pure fluff - were pleasantly surprised to discover hidden new depths to the band.

Our old friend, Jerry Liar at the Melody Maker, however, had given us the cover and made us record of the week. He claimed that this record was total vindication for all the praise he'd showered on the first one, writing that we'd made the kind of stylistic leap in sophistication and artistry that many bands took three or four albums to develop. Our publicist even called us to inform us that it was the first record she'd ever worked on that had been reviewed favourably in both Smash Hits and The Wire. But for the most part, reviews were, in a word, confused. But, I supposed, if we confused people - well, we could work with that.

We weren't playing, unfortunately - Amy had been unable to locate a suitably sized hall in time, and besides, she explained, she thought that it might interfere with sales for the upcoming mini-tour - so instead, she'd booked the party at some ridiculously trendy dance club. Although someone had suggested we all arrive together, for solidarity (safety in numbers?) Emma nixed the idea as foolish and Monkees-ish, and said something snottily about showing up when she damn well felt like it, provoking a lecture from Amy, a forced apology from Emma, but a general feeling of unease with the entire event.

As I stared at the contents of my half of the closet (since when did I have a half of the closet at Damien's? If I didn't watch out, we'd end up living together without my even noticing) I was completely at a loss for what to wear, though my discontent was not with my wardrobe. Finally, I pulled out the pair of leather trousers he had bought me as a present shortly after Glastonbury. Although they had initially horrified me, as a vegetarian, when I pulled them over my hips, they felt like armour.

"You look absolutely dazzling," Damien assured me with a lingering kiss, looking me up and down with obvious satisfaction.

"You think so?" Giving him one of those longing glances that seemed to slay him every time, I grabbed him by his lapels and pulled him backwards, towards the bed, sinking down and trying to pull him on top of me.

"Cut it out," warned Damien, though his voice was a little more convincing than his body, responding to the familiar stimulus of my touch. "We're late as it is."

"Do we have to go at all?" I whined, running my lips down the inside of his ear.

"Come, on, Kate!" he insisted, though I could tell it was taking every ounce of his willpower to be so authoritative. Climbing off me, he stood up and straightened his jacket, though from the look in his eyes it was obvious that he would much rather be rolling around on the bed with me. Without taking my eyes from his, I pouted sulkily and started to fidget with the waistband of my trousers, hooking my thumb under the belt and pushing them lower, to expose the top of one hip. "Stop that! We're going and that's it."

With a deep sigh, I climbed off the bed and followed him down to the car. Well, alright, then, I'd go, but I wouldn't enjoy it.

By the time we got there, the party was in full swing, with liggers and hangers-on practically dripping from the ceiling. Damien hung around for a few photographs, then rapidly disappeared to the bar to find drinks, leaving me and my bandmates to handle the endless rounds of 'shake and fake,' smiling and performing for the nice record company people. I didn't want to talk to these people; where were my friends? Were Alex and Em here, or, or was she off flying around the world in her life of jet set photographer to the stars? Well, there was Alex, back in a booth with Jarvis and Kate, who was now waving madly, trying to get my attention.

"Excuse me just a moment," I managed to inform the record company drone blathering in my ear about unit shifting in Japan, then dodged off to make my way to talk to my friends. "Hey! Thanks for coming!" I gushed, actually meaning it for a change.

"No problem, sweetie," assured Alex, moving over so I could sit down next to him, brushing the top of my head with his lips in a drunken kiss.

"Where's Em?" I asked with genuine disappointment, craning my head and looking around.

"Wisconsin," sighed Alex. "I'm not even sure where that is, but Em's off there to shoot Trashed."

"Har har, I wish someone would shoot Trashed - they're apparently our biggest competition, and the label people are worried about comparisons, even though we sound nothing alike. Feminine angst and all that," I flipped back snottily. Beth was always getting compared to their vocalist, because of a vague physical resemblance, through truly, we could not sound more different.

"I liked them better when they were called Curve," commented Kate Sutton cattily. "I love your new album, by the way, Kate - can I borrow some tracks for a catwalk show next month?"

"Well, sure," I shrugged, ducking down to avoid the penetrating glare of a notoriously anti-Charms music journalist, obviously scouting the club looking for each of us to pin us down and inflict his opinions on us. Oh, good, he'd found Maddie. Maddie would ignore his snide comments and confound him with her simple, friendly charm. "It's going to be a long night, isn't it?" I moaned, folding my arms on the table and laying my head on top of it.

"You'll be fine," giggled Alex, tousling my hair affectionately. Suddenly, he stiffened, staring in the direction of the door. "Oh my god, look who just walked in. You never see _them_ out anywhere." I turned to see none other than Thom and Jonny from Radioshack standing awkwardly in the door, each trying unsuccessfully to hide behind the other. "Their record company has to practically drag them to meet and greets to promote their own material. What are they doing in London?"

"I dunno. The tall dark one's kinda cute," observed Kate with a practised eye.

Jonny was looking around the room desperately, but as soon as he spotted Beth, he made a beeline for her, charging through the crowd like a tenacious bird dog, leaving Thom to stand awkwardly by himself at the door. "Well, it's obvious who he's come here for," I laughed as I watched him tap her tentatively on the shoulder, his face lighting up as she turned around and smiled at him.

"He looks a bit like Alex, to be honest," noted Kate, with a smirk towards Alex.

"Well, Alex is cute," I agreed, ruffling his hair. Alex beamed with pride. How comfortable it was to be able to flirt harmlessly with him now, after months of weirdness. "I sort of met them at Beth's shoot last week. Do you think I should say hi?"

"Don't bother," sniffed Alex with more than a hint of jealousy. "They're terrible snobs. Worse even than Damon."

"They're not snobs," I defended huffily. "They're just... really shy. Though they still intimidate the hell out of me," I added under my breath.

"Who are snobs?" demanded Damien, reappearing at the table with an armload of noxious looking drinks, handing them around to everyone.

"Radioshack," replied Alex, carefully holding back his hair to light a cigarette off the candle in the centre of the table. "Watch out, Damien, I think she fancies their guitarist. She said he looked like _meee,_ " he added with a playfully teasing tone.

"Shut the fuck up!" I snarled at Alex, turning more than slightly red. I did not fancy anyone. "Their album simply helped me through some incredibly difficult time in my life, and I'm a bit in awe of Thom's songwriting ability. That's all." No fancying involved.

"What _is_ this, Damien?" asked Kate, taking a sip of her drink, making a face, then holding it up to the light to peer at its murky depths. "It's repulsive!"

"Absinthe!" beamed Damien, pulling some paper-wrapped cubes out of his pocked. "Don't drink it straight, Sutton. Here, let me show you..." After a complex operation with a cigarette lighter, a sugar cube and a dash of water, he somehow managed to render the liquid drinkable.

"You know what Oscar Wilde said about absinthe," mused Alex, eyeing his with a slightly concerned expression before downing the rest of it and holding his glass up for more. "The first glass, you see things as you wish they were, then the second glass, you see things as they are not, and... oh, what was the third glass?" he mumbled, as if he'd already had about three glasses too many.

"One absinthe, two absinthe, three absinthe, floor?' suggested Kate helpfully.

"No, no, I'm quite sure that the third glass makes things appear as they truly are, which is the most terrifying of all," corrected Jarvis.

I stared at my drink, wondering why it seemed Damien had given me about twice as much as the rest of them, then shrugged and gulped it down. Ugh. Liquorice with a definite hint of formaldehyde - or was that just from sitting down in his studio for god knows how long? "People actually liked the taste of this?"

"I don't think it was the taste that they were after."

Strange; I was beginning to feel very drunk, but a clear-headed, lucent drunk, as if I'd been given all the disinhibitory effects of an entire bottle of gin without any of the soft, disorienting, cushioning effects.

"Do you want some more?' leered Damien.

"Do you _want_ me completely plastered?" I asked apprehensively, not sure I wanted to see a record release party as it really was.

"In a word, yes," he laughed, splashing more into my glass. "You might actually relax and enjoy yourself."

It was at that point that someone produced a tiny envelope, and the illicit chemicals started going around the table. I didn't even see where it came from, if it had been deposited by a friendly journalist or if it had been secreted by one of my friends. Without Em around to keep him in line, Alex made a face like a naughty schoolboy, then caved in. "Oh, go on then, just the one line. What can it hurt?"

Jarvis waited until Kate Sutton's back was turned, then quickly made short work of a few lines himself. But when Damien helped himself to a quick snort, I shot him a wounded look. "Not you, too?"

"Come on, it's a celebration. Once in a blue moon naughty blow-out," he protested.

"I can't stand it - you know I can't."

"No one's forcing you to do it."

"Yeah, but do you have to do it, too? It just reminds me of fucking Jeremy and... well, scenes I'd rather forget."

"Jeremy was a fucking idiot as well as an addict. I'm neither. I know how to use drugs for a celebration and not a habit. Have you ever seen me lose control? Of anything?"

"No, but..."

"Alright." He pushed the wrapper away, back towards Jarvis. "If it bothers you that much, I won't do it around you."

"Thanks," I replied dryly, though I was not convinced.

As Alex and Jarvis squabbled with manic intensity over Oscar Wilde quotes, I leaned back in the chair, trying to pace my drinking, but my nervousness overcame my good sense. Suddenly, I found myself hating the entire situation, despite that fact that I was surrounded by my best friends in the world. The scenario seemed forced, phoney, a giant industry charade puffed up on cocaine. I wanted to stand up and scream _Can't we go somewhere else? Let's have a party back at Alex and Em's flat so Jarvis can pull the Collected Wit And Wisdom of Oscar Wilde out of the bookshelf to prove Alex wrong! Let's go anywhere but here!_ The people were right, but the situation was so wrong.

But no, there they were, all seeming to be enjoying themselves, talking blue streaks about how well the album was going to do in that hyper-excited cocaine chatter, and I suddenly felt very embarrassed. Shrinking back from the conversation, I cast my eyes desperately about the room, looking for an escape root, when my eyes fell upon Thom, standing by himself in a corner of the room as if hiding, or plotting his exit. Well, he was the only person with a lick of sense in the entire club, wasn't he?

"Excuse me for a moment, I see someone I know," I muttered to my friends, climbing to my feet and dashing for the safety of the dark corner that Thom had found. As I approached, a trapped expression crossed his eyes, and he looked around desperately, but another group of people had blocked his path back to the safety of the door. "Hi," I ventured, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice in order to sound friendly and non-threatening. God, he intimidated me. He looked me up and down, frowning disapprovingly as his eyes came to rest on the leather trousers, and I suddenly felt them turn from protecting armour into a liability. "It's good to see you again."

"Hullo. Yes, good to see you too." he finally squeaked back, twisting his mouth into a terrifyingly phoney smile. "What a fun party. Fun, fun, fun."

"You don't look very comfortable here. In fact, you look perfectly miserable," I observed. So much for tactfulness - what was in this absinthe stuff; truth serum?

"Yes," he responded in a guarded monosyllable.

"So why the hell did you come?" Oh god, please, let that not have sounded as antagonistic as it seemed, slipping out like that.

"Jonny." His shoulders were hunched, his hands in his pockets, his whole posture screaming defensiveness.

As I took a step closer, he took a step back, as if he was terrified that I was going to pounce on him. Oh god, of course. The last time I saw him, I'd been pawing him for a movie scene; he probably thought I was some sex-crazed nymphomaniac. Think fast, Kate, diffuse the tension, show him how unthreatening you are...

"You can come back and sit with us, if you like," I offered. For a millisecond, I thought I saw his face actually brighten. Diversion successful - reinforce idea of non-threateningness by mentioning your significant other. "Have you met my partner, Damien? Damien Hearse?"

Thom's face twisted in a look of palpable disgust. "Uh, no thanks."

Oh god, no. I could read that expression - _shameless namedropper_. The truth was I didn't even think of Damien as Damien bloody Hearse any more; he was just the bloke I shared a bed with every night.

Looking around desperately, his face contorted in abhorrence. "This is just wrong. This is all so fucking wrong. Don't you just feel like a fucking monkey on display in a cage? They pull the little strings and we all have to dance. Dance for the men in the industry, dance, dance, dance, like a baited bear. This isn't natural, and I hate having to pretend it is. Fuck, I really... I, um... I really, have to, um, go..." stuttered Thom, backing away from me slowly, then making a dash for the door. He stopped momentarily to say something to Jonny, who turned and looked at me, shrugged, then turned back to Beth with that attentive look.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He hates me._ Slumping my shoulders, I dodged the party of schmoozeratti making small talk by the bar and picked my way back to our booth, only to find that Damien had squeezed in next to Alex, stealing my seat. The volume of their hilarity had increased as the level of absinthe in the bottle decreased, and a second wrapper of cocaine had appeared at the table. How could they ignore the tension in the room? How could they continue to go on laughing and pretending that everything was just one big party with all of these business vultures swooping about our heads? All around me, I felt these people crushing in on me, their egos so large I could practically see them. Get me out of here I can't stay in this room another minute I can't breath you're crushing me I can't breath...

Before I even knew what I was doing, I had pushed my way to the exit, and was standing out in the street panting, breathing the cool mist of rain deep into my lungs. The panic was gone, replaced by a very deep sense of relief to be outside, away from the maddening claustrophobia inside. For a moment, I almost felt like laughing, but a crowd of people were being disgorged from the club entrance.

"Kate Gordon!" called out a vague blobby shape, walking towards me. I blinked a few times, and the blobby shape congealed into the form of the music journalist I particularly despised. "Great party - love the new album. We're off to go catch an all night dance party DJ'd by Undertow - want to tag along?"

I shook my head. "It's my happening, and it freaks me out..." I muttered slowly and carefully, and they all laughed.

"Har har har. That'll be the headline on Melody Maker tomorrow," he laughed, and the sea of hangers on attached to him started to move off down the street. Gasping for air, I stared up into the sky, trying to catch raindrops in my mouth, then became entranced by the halo of mist surrounding a street light. The night air was cool and soothing, and I felt safe, so long as I did not even think about venturing back into the club. The hell with them all, then. The absinthe drunk was starting to settle in and feel comfortable, rather than unnerving, in fact rather enjoyable out here.

"Kate..." Alex's voice surprised me, and I turned to see him standing in the doorway, a cigarette clamped between his lips. "I was wondering what had happened to you. Are you alright?"

"Fine," I shrugged, rather too hastily. "It was just a bit claustrophobic in there."

"What did Thom say?" he asked curiously. "I told you he can be a bit surly..."

"Nothing." Thom had said absolutely nothing; perhaps that was the problem. I didn't even know what I had expected him to say; open up his heart and pour out all the answers to the universe? Rock stars didn't have any of the answers; why did I keep expecting them to?

Alex sighed deeply and leaned over, peering into my face, so close that I could smell the alcohol on his breath. "You seemed upset... Is it Thom you have the crush on, then?" he added, trying to get me to smile.

"Did it ever possibly occur to you that there could be anything wrong with me other than who I am or am not or would like to be screwing?" I snapped, irritated at the question.

Alex pulled away sharply. "I was joking," he explained icily.

Suddenly Damien appeared behind him, his face clouded with concern. "Kate?"

My ears pricked up at the sight of him, and I moved towards him for safety, reaching out and taking his hands, pulling him towards me, bending over and whispering in his ear. "Can we go, please? Just don't ask any questions..."

I had expected a fight, but something in my eyes must have scared him, as he nodded quickly. "Fine. OK." Turning around, he addressed Alex. "I'm sorry, can you relay our apologies to the rest of the gang?"

"Of course." Alex's face was dark, disappointed. Which one of us was he jealous of? Me, for stealing his best friend and partner in crime? Or Damien, for the fact that I could confide in Damien the way I could never confide in him?

Leaving the neon entrance of the club behind, the two of us walked off together into the cool, damp night, side by side, neither holding hands nor touching, but in perfect step with one another.

"Would you like to tell me what that was about now?" asked Damien calmly. It was a suggestion, not a command.

"I've drunk too much absinthe," I whimpered by way of explanation. "I felt sick."

"Bullshit. I've seen you drink twice as much alcohol and walk away."

"You know I hate those things," I sighed. "I hate smiling and faking it, I hate pretending to be polite and obsequious to music journalists and record company assholes that I loathe just to get good reviews... I just..."

"So should life only consist of those things that you enjoy, then?" Damien teased.

"Well, no, I never said that. But it should have a minimum of things that I utterly loathe." I stared at him, frustrated that I lacked the ability to put it into words. The drink. The drugs. The money. The egos. Why did no one else have the courage to just stand up and shout _I'm having a miserable time. Can't we all just go off and go bowling instead?_

"You're acting like a spoiled brat. You know this, right?" Damien countered.

I stared at him resentfully. "I thought you were supposed to be on my side."

Rolling his eyes, Damien refused to be drawn into that debate. "You're just being resentful because I'm right. You've got a job that most kids in this city would kill for, travelling around the world, and getting paid to do what you love - and you are whining because you have to suffer through 3 hours of some meet and greet? And even this... you're sitting around with a bunch of your mates getting pissed on illicit substances, and you're still fucking complaining. What else do you want, Kate? What else do you want?"

 

Folding the weekly music papers so that Damien wouldn't see the covers, I skipped up the stairs, making sure he was deeply involved in his studio before retiring to the kitchen table to pour myself a cup of coffee and devour them for any mention of our album or our upcoming tour. And no, the fact that Thom Eboracum was on the cover of the NME, talking about the album they were avoiding starting work on had nothing to do with it. Strange little man that he was, he was still incredibly photogenic with that shock of spiky red hair and those intensely blue but somehow mismatched eyes. Skimming over our review, as I'd already practically memorised it, I flipped back to the Radioshack interview and started to absorb it. Surely they had to mention us, or at least Beth. On the last page, about halfway down, there it was.

 

> **NME: You've just finished work on the new Ewan MacGlashan film,** _Please Kill Me_ **, and contributed a couple of songs to the soundtrack. Tell us about that?**
> 
> **Jonny:** We played quite possibly the worst punk band in the world. We'll probably be in about three scenes in the final cut.
> 
> **Thom:** Yeah, blink and you'll miss us. (laughs)
> 
> **NME: You play the backing band of current media darling, Beth Blair of the Charms?**
> 
> **Jonny:** That was a treat, working with her.
> 
> **Thom:** When we first found out, we were terrified. I thought it was going to turn into Spice World, the Punk Years or something...
> 
> **Jonny:** (frowns) No, have you heard their new album? The electronic one? It's light years ahead of their older material. It reminds me of early Throwing Muses or something. Obviously, not the music, which is all electronic, experimental. But she has that same sort of emotional intensity, Beth does.
> 
> **Thom remains dubious:** I dunno. You wonder how much of it is real, and how much is so clinical, so studied. Do you remember the last day of shooting, when their bassist (Kate Gordon) came in? She was nothing like I was expecting. It's all an image thing. I've never met anyone who was so in control of her own image. It all seemed so false, so it makes me suspicious of the music.
> 
> **NME: Well people might ask the same question of you - critics have dismissed your last album as clinical, studied art student angst-by-numbers.**

 

I blinked, staring at the page. _Clinical and studied?_ That hurt. Any other insult he'd chosen to throw at me, I could have shrugged off. I didn't know who to believe any more - on one hand, I had Damien telling me that I was being a spoiled, over-emotional prima donna, yet on the other hand, here was someone whose opinion mattered to me - hell, whom I idolised - telling me that I came across as clinical and studied? Folding the newspaper closed, I stared at the cover.

"Kate?" Damien's voice rang out across the room as he padded into the kitchen. "Ooh, is this fresh coffee?" Since when had Damien become a coffee enthusiast? He'd protested and screamed bloody murder when I first brought the percolator into the house, but now he was helping himself to my precious supply.

"Yes," I nodded, trying to push the papers out of view before he could see what I was reading, but I was too late, as he snuck up behind me and leaned over my shoulder to see what I was so intent on.

"Well, if it isn't the little red-headed boy," he chuckled.

I bristled, folding up the paper. "I thought you were working tonight."

Damien sat down opposite me, grinning his wicked smile as he pulled the paper out of my hands. "I can work any time. You're leaving on tour tomorrow."

"I was reading that," I grumbled.

"No you weren't. You were just sitting here staring soulfully at the picture of Thom Ebola."

"Eboracum," I corrected testily. Although Damien was obviously feeling playful, I wasn't in the mood to spar with him. "And I wasn't staring soulfully. I was just thinking."

"Thinking." Damien stuck his lower lip out in imitation of my pout.

Rolling my eyes, I climbed to my feet, pushing the chair back abruptly, refusing to even dignify his taunts with a response.

"Kate..." Damien followed me through into the living room, his tone of voice contrite. "I'm sorry." Smiling disarmingly, he dropped down onto the sofa beside me. "Come on, give me just one little smile. Then you won't have to put up with me for two whole weeks."

Actually, when he acted like this, he made me look forward to two weeks of peace and quiet without him. "I hate touring," I quickly growled to cover the incipient grin at that thought.

"No you don't. I saw you on stage last week. You love it," he contradicted. I sighed deeply and started to get up, but he caught me by the hand. "Come on, what do you want to do? Shall we crack open a bottle of wine and get stinking drunk?"

"We always end tours with hangovers. I'd prefer not to start with one."

"Right, we could rip off all our clothes and shag like demented rabbits," he suggested hopefully. Never one for subtlety, was Damien? "Or maybe just some oral sex?"

I shook my head slowly, not sure whether I wanted to grin or hit him. "Dame, I just..." I didn't want sex, I didn't want an argument, I just wanted to lie about and be moody, but he refused to let me.

"Hey, did I show you my new toy?" enthused Damien, leaping off the couch and digging around on the table. "Hey, check this out. You can borrow this while you're on tour, if you like," he offered, depositing the tiniest keyboard I had ever seen in my life into my hands.

"What is it?" I asked, opening up a tiny screen that looked a bit like a laptop that had been through the dryer a few too many times.

"Some sort of super-condensed palmtop computer. Dale got it for me, to check e-mail when I'm on the run, but you know how I am with my e-mail." No matter where I was, I checked my e-mail compulsively three or four times a day, but Damien was content to let it pile up for weeks at a time. If he said a single word about that, well, I'd just point out how dependant on his cell phone he was. "It's got a cell phone built into it, so you can check your e-mail, voice-mail, text messages and anything else," he added, as if anticipating the argument. "Isn't that cool? Or at least, it would be, if I could get it to work..."

I smiled despite myself as I booted it up easily. Damien loved gadgets, but he was so hopeless at setting them up that the clock on his VCR was still blinking 12:00.

"Magic!" laughed Damien. "It's yours. Now about a shag?"

 

The baby computer, or Hal, as I named it, turned out to be the best tour toy I'd ever had. Although I'd long come to depend on my laptop to relieve the boredom of the studio, I had never had even thought of bringing something with me on tour. Instead of viewing the long hours on the tourbus and in hotels as torture, I now looked forward to them as a chance to catch up on e-mail. If I was lucky, I'd catch one of my friends online at the same time, and we'd send forth a flurry of one-liners, driving Damien's phone bill into the triple digits, no doubt. Alex gave me Em's address, Em gave me Kate Sutton's, and pretty soon, my inbox was swamped.

True to Damien's word, I was finding the gigs exhilarating after the long absence from live performances. Although I enjoyed recording, nothing quite compared to the thrill that one got off a live crowd, bobbing only feet away from you. The crowds were getting larger, and more enthusiastic, if it was possible, as the single started to inch higher on the charts. We might have another single in the charts yet, it seemed.

I enjoyed playing live, but the backstage circus was another story altogether. The first time out, we had been born up in the thrill of being wined, dined and schmoozed by the press, but now it just seemed like a chore. The same mindless platitudes lisped by the same mindless journalists - who were only dying to get a chance to rip us apart in an interview the first chance they got - were growing rather thin. They had dismissed us as has-beens and star-fuckers after falling apart so dramatically on our last tour - how dare we prove them wrong by coming back with an album that was even better than the first one, and a tour that was rapidly selling out?

The first night of the tour, and our worst nightmare turned up backstage, a particularly vicious journalist that seemed to have had it out for us from the beginning. The first interview we'd ever done with him, he's twisted our words, taken them out of context, and outright misquoted us, and none of us were inclined to give him a second chance. In a bold move of solidarity, Emma, Maddie and I all refused to go along with the game, thinking that Beth would join us in maintaining an impenetrable wall of silence against the man that was screaming for our blood. But to our surprise, Beth decided to handle the interview all by herself, whether through martyrdom or through a desire to capture the whole spotlight for herself, we couldn't quite decide.

"What does she think she's doing?" raged Emma, glaring at her from across the crowded dressing room as Beth chatted with the despised journalist. "I thought we all agreed!"

"Beth never said she would," sighed Maddie.

"We voted. Three to one. Majority always carries," pointed out Emma.

"I think we should go over and at least try to back her up," suggested Maddie diplomatically.

"Back her up?" snarled Emma. "That's exactly what she wants it to look like. She's doing this on purpose to make us just look like a fucking backing band. This album was written by all of us, and it belongs to all of us. Kate! I mean, what do you think?"

Startled, I looked up from the e-mail I'd been composing, telling Alex about the very argument that the two of them were engaging in. "Um, I don't want to get involved, really I don't," I stuttered.

For a first night, this was not an auspicious start to a tour. But the second day of the tour, we did not fare much better. The show went off like spontaneous, magical clockwork, but the moment we got off stage, things started to go wrong. During the course of another interview that afternoon, the direction in which things were moving began to become apparent.

"I do have to say," ventured the perplexed but obsequious journalist. "That his album is heading off in a very different direction than the first album suggested. Would you care to comment on that?"

"Well, that's because it was recorded under very different circumstances," began Maddie, but the journalist completely ignored her, thrusting the microphone into Beth's face.

"Well, it's a natural progression," stuttered Beth, surprised, but flattered by the attention. Maddie looked slightly taken aback, but was far too polite to actually point out the affront. "People grow, and bands grow. They can't expect us to remain static."

"The lyrics, especially, seem to have taken a turn for the darker," continued the journalist.

"Well, the lyrics have always been fairly dark. We've just couched them in a very cynical sense of humour, so people don't notice how dark they were," I started to explain, but the journalist did not even notice, continuing to hold the microphone in front of Beth's face.

Beth smiled magnificently, blossoming under the attention. "Well, I think that has a lot to do with the personal trials and tribulations that this band has suffered since the first album," she explained, tossing her hair and turning slightly toward the camera.

"And how do you feel about the constant stream of controversy that has seemed to encircle the band?" probed the journalist, practically creaming himself.

"Actually, I think it bloody well detracts from the important part of the band, which is the music..." snorted Emma, but without the microphone, her words drifted futilely into nothing.

Dipping her eyelashes, then turning her violet eyes towards the camera, Beth blushed coyly. "As Oscar Wilde used to say, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

As soon as we were ensconced safely in the privacy of the bus, Emma exploded in indignation. "He completely ignored us!" she accused. "If he wanted a private audience with Beth, why the bloody hell didn't he say so, instead of trotting the rest of us to stand out there like trained monkeys."

"Oh, this is a change of heart," countered Beth. "Yesterday, you were snarling all over the place about how we were a band, and screaming at me because I dared to give an interview without the rest of the band there. You can't have it both ways, Emma!"

"Well, why the bloody hell can't they interview us as a band, instead of zeroing in on the singer like a pack of bloody vultures and treating the rest of us as superfluous backing players?" snarled Emma.

"And this is my fault?" responded Beth, throwing her hands into the air in a protestation of innocence.

"Just once, if you'd said something like _'well, actually we all write the lyrics, and they are personal to whatever each one of us has gone through'_ instead of just standing there batting your eyelids at the camera like a fucking movie star."

"Well, bloody hell, I am the front woman," defended Beth.

"What?" I interjected. Though I hadn't meant to get involved in the private squabbling between Beth and Emma, Beth's attitude was beginning to irk me. "Do you remember, years and years ago - we agreed that we were a band. Four individuals working together, not a front woman and her lackeys."

"Well, yes, but..." stuttered Beth, realising that she might have gone too far, and rapidly trying to regroup. "There has to be some sort of focus, or it'll all be chaos. These journalists want something they can latch on to."

"No! That's fucking not on!" exploded Emma. "Because then they're going to start assuming that because you're a front woman or whatever, that you must have written all the songs, and that's just not how it happened."

"Is that what this is really about?" snarled Beth. "We're back to the fucking bloody publishing thing again, are we? We've been over the songwriting credits for the band a thousand times, all music is credited to the Charms, except in those rare cases where it was specifically written by one of us..."

"Exactly!" crowed Emma in triumph. "So why don't you fucking say that to one of these journalists!"

"Because it's written by us as a band, not just by you and your bloody guitar," hurled back Beth.

"If you want to get technical about it, 80 percent of the songs on this album were written by Kate and I in her apartment before you two even showed up!" interjected Maddie, in an uncharacteristically forceful tone. "Neither of us have ever asked for complete songwriting credit for that, but it would be _nice_ if just once, we could have the fact recognised that it is as much, if not more _our_ album as it is you two's!"

All three of us turned to stare at her, barely believing that such strong words could have come from the normally complacent Maddie. For a moment, it looked as if she were going to back down, but then a fierce light flickered in her eyes and she stood her ground, staring back and forth between Emma and Beth.

"What about you?" deflected Beth, trying to draw attention away from the issue by pulling me into the debate. "Do you think that this is your album, and you two have never got enough credit for it?"

With three pairs of angry eyes turned upon me, I did not quite know how to respond. Although I had to admit that I was irked by the fact that so many of the journalists seemed to be concentrating on Beth to the exclusion of the rest of us, for once, I didn't think it had anything to do with mis-attributed songwriting credits. "I am perfectly happy with the way songwriting credits and publishing royalties are structured," I assessed. Beth turned back to Emma with a self-satisfied smirk. "But," I continued, warily. "I am not happy with the way that interviews have been structured lately. Perhaps we could talk to our press agent about trying to split up the interviews between us, so that way we can do twice as many interviews, and hopefully get across all of our viewpoints," I suggested diplomatically.

"What? As if I'm going to trust you two to give responsible interviews by yourselves?" sputtered Emma.

Beth whirled on her. "Thank you, but I do not need to ask your approval to say anything..."

"Look!" I interrupted at the top of my lungs, quieting them both. "I know it's not a perfect situation, but we have to learn how to compromise to get through these things."

"Fine," snorted Emma, shrugging, then retreating to her bunk bed to sulk. With a toss of her hair, Beth stalked off in the opposite direction toward the back of the bus, leaving Maddie and I staring apprehensively at each other.

"This doesn't look good," Maddie finally sighed, shaking her head.

"I know, but it's the best I can think of. We have to keep them apart, or they'll end up tearing the bloody band apart," I protested.

"I don't know," worried Maddie. "I mean, I just don't think it will do much good in the long run. When these things start to pull the band apart, we have to stick together even closer. Split us up, and..." her voice trailed off, as if she did not want to contemplate the possible outcome. "This was how the end started for the Jesus Sugarpussy. Carlos said he knew it was over when Rob and Tony started doing interviews without each other. If you split up Emma and Beth like that, I don't know if you'll ever get them back together."

"At the moment, I'm just worried about getting through this tour," I sighed, retiring back to my own bed.

The next evening, we tried the new strategy, letting Beth and Maddie go off to talk to one set of journalists, while Emma and I were diverted to another room. Although our writer seemed a bit disappointed at first to realise it was only the two of us, after a few minutes of flipping friendly jousts back and forth at one another, Emma and I soon had him convinced that he had actually lucked out in scoring the talkative half of the band. Already, the air seemed clearer and the tension seemed much diminished, as we found ourselves genuinely laughing and having a good time offstage for the first time in days.

My spirits were soaring, as we ended the interview, convinced that everything was back to normal, but as soon as we turned the corner back into the venue, I could feel Emma tense beside me. "Wait, what the fuck is going on, who are these idiots crashing our interview?" she snapped, glaring at the table where we'd left Beth and Maddie.

Following her eyes, I looked over to see Beth warmly greeting none other than Jonny Greensleaves, followed closely by Thom Eboracum, providing a perfect photo op for the salivating journalist. What the hell were they doing here?

"Thom and Jonny from Radioshack," I replied dreamily.

"Oh, just fucking great," swore Emma, glaring at them. "Now people going to try to say that Thom Eboracum ghost-wrote our latest album like they said Jeremy Kane wrote our first."

"Emma..." I sighed, pulling my computer out of my backpack and trying to shrink down to invisibility behind the tiny shield of its monitor. Of course, we were in Oxford, their home town. Dreaming spires, indeed.

"I have half a mind to go over and..." Emma started, but I cut her off.

"Come on, Emma, you promised," I reminded her, powering up the computer and logging on to the internet to collect my mail. How had I ever managed to survive without this thing? Plugged into my electronic cocoon, I could forget all about the conflicts between my band mates, chirping with surprise as I saw a familiar name drop into my inbox.

 

* * *

 

From: AJSexmeal@slur.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: surviving?

 

So how are the wonderful warring band mates? Have Beth and Emma killed each other yet?

 

* * *

 

Chuckling slightly, I lowered my head, hit reply, then typed _I have died and gone to hell. Help me!_ into the keyboard before hitting the send button. What do you mean, No route to host? Did I lose my freaking connection again? This would be the greatest toy in the world if it worked. Saving the message to send it later, I hung up and tried to re-establish a connection, holding it up in the air to try and catch any stray reception

"Excuse me, but what is that?" asked a familiar voice, soft at my elbow.

I looked up to see Thom staring with obvious curiosity at my computer. "This is my little friend, Hal," I explained proudly, then suddenly clammed up, remembering that I was still smarting over the comments he'd made in last week's music press.

"Is that one of those new palmtops?" he asked with the unmistakable tone of a computer geek in the presence of a piece of technology superior to anything he owned. This time, he didn't bother looking me up and down or sneering at my leather trousers, he just honed in immediately on the little piece of kit.

"Yeah," I replied, somewhat more guardedly. "Damien got it, but never used it, so he gave it to me. It's pretty powerful, considering its size. I just wish I could get a decent mobile connection in this metal box of a venue..."

"It's online? Let me guess. Uses mobile reception for a modem?" speculated Thom, nearly slavering at the lips.

"Built in," I boasted. "Do you want to try?" I offered, holding the thing out to him. He fiddled with it for a few minutes, then started to swear in frustration. "Is it giving you that no route to host message?" I asked patiently. "Do you wanna go outside and try to see if we can get a better connection?"

Thom nodded excitedly, and I made a mad dash for the door, desperate to be away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the venue, not to mention the hostile minefield that my band had just become again. 

"Oh, right, it's much better out here," observed Thom. "Let's see who's online..."

"Can you just send the mail in my outbox?" I asked, itching to get my hands back on my own computer.

"Sure, sure... Ha ha! Look! He answered back already!" cackled Thom, already lost to the world.

"Who, Alex?" That was quick, considering Em was supposed to be back in town.

"No, our bassist. Jonny's geeky big brother. Ha ha, I think he lives online." There was much chuckling and giggling as Thom started to type furiously into the keyboard. "He's going to die of jealousy when he hears you have one of these... wait, is AJSexmeal anyone important, or can I ignore this incoming message?"

"Give me that!" At least Alex answered his e-mail. Damien probably hadn't even checked his yet.

"Just a minute..."

It took me nearly an hour to get my computer back from Thom. But it was the first time I'd ever seen Thom actually smile in my presence, his face lighting up with mischief and genuine pleasure as he kept trying to show me funny emails from his friends. And when he smiled, that aggro-zombie glare giving way to a childlike grin, I realised he wasn't just good-looking. He was actually beautiful.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over the course of a UK tour which finds all four Charms wanting to kill each other, Kate Gordon finds solace in an unlikely email correspondence. And as she and Thom circle one another intellectually, first with pigtail-pulling, then with banter, they start to form a friendship which surprises both of them.

I did not even want to think about my phone bill with the amount of time I was spending online, but the next day, I found myself on the bus, logged on as usual, when an unfamiliar address dropped into my inbox.

* * *

 

From: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: how's your phone bill? 

 

are you still on that thing?

 

 

* * *

 

Salamander? Who the hell was Salamander? This was a new address - perhaps only three people in the UK knew it. After staring at it for a few minutes, I decided to take the challenge and respond.

 

 

* * *

 

From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
To: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
Subject: re: how's your phone bill? 

 

 _> Are you still on that thing?_  

 

Yes. Insidiously addictive. Buy stock in Orange now.

 

 

* * *

 

Ignoring the potential damage to Damien's credit rating, I hung around online for a few minutes, to see if the mystery e-mailer replied. After all, it was probably less damaging than sticking my head above the level of the tourbus seats and risking getting involved in World War Three between Beth and Emma. Were the two of them incapable of going on tour together and remaining friends for more than two days? This time it was perhaps 18 hours, a new world record. Suddenly a pop-up announced new mail.

* * *

 

From: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: I sold my soul to BT 

 

 _> Yes. Insidiously addictive._  

tell me about it. i went out and bought one this morning.

_> Buy stock in Orange now._

ooh, thanks for the tip. you've discovered my dark and shameful secret. i'm gadget happy! SSSSHHHH! don't tell. 

they'll never let you back in your fancy drinking clubs if they discover that you've spent more on computers than on champagne. 

write back soon,  
thom

 

* * *

 

Thom. Of course. Who else would have known about my new toy? And since he'd spent the better part of an evening e-mailing his friends from my account, of course he would have the address. Grinning to myself, I had to admit I was a little perplexed as to why he'd written, but nonetheless pleased.

Knowing to whom I was writing made me slightly nervous, as the thought of him still made me a bit giddy and starstruck, but the generic typeface of the computer made him slightly less threatening, and I relaxed slightly, slipping into an easy informality in my reply. Pushing the thought of my phone bill out of my mind, I checked my mail compulsively every few hours until a reply dropped back into my inbox, and before I even realised, we were shooting e-mails back and forth at each other once, even twice a day.

* * *

 

From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
To: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
Subject: I sold my soul to BT 

 

 _> tell me about it. i went out and bought one this morning._  

And you configured it already? Clever lizard.

 _> ooh, thanks for the tip._  

That would be me. Bass player, architecture student, stock market wizard. Pork bellies! Pork bellies! One word: plastics!

_> you've discovered my dark and shameful secret._

Secret, singular? Come on, you can do better than that. ;-) 

 _> they'll never let you back in your_  
> fancy drinking clubs if they discover that you've spent  
> more on computers than on champagne. 

Champagne? You've obviously never been to one. Try cocaine. But any useless toy is good for conspicuous consumption, and therefore status symbol, so my place in the primate pecking order, I mean, social strata remains assured.

_> write back soon,_

You're offering to pay my phone bill, then? 

K

* * *

 

From: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: pot-bellied pork 

 

_> And you configured it already? Clever lizard._

clever and crafty lizard, i. (me? those personal pronouns always trip me up.) plug and play, indeed. 

_> Pork bellies! Pork bellies!_

i always wondered what they did with the rest of the pig. or is that your boyfriend's stock in trade? ;-) 

_> One word: plastics!_

are you trying to seduce me, mrs. robinson? 

_> Secret, singular? Come on, you can do better than that. _

right, you've got me. i sing in the shower, too. that's my embarrassing secret. the greatest hits of the 70's, 80's and today. would you like to hear me do my robert smith impression?

 _> Champagne? You've obviously never been to one. Try cocaine._  

nasty drug. stay away from it. only useless tossers need said ego support supplement.

 _> But any useless toy is good for conspicuous consumption, and_  
> therefore status symbol, so my place in the primate pecking  
> order, I mean, social strata remains assured.

 and stay away from weblen, you nasty little girl! a little political science is a dangerous thing.

 _> You're offering to pay my phone bill, then?_  

why not? you're more entertaining than those naughty webpages. ;-)

t. 

* * *

 

From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
To: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
Subject: pork-bellied pot 

 

As my brother always wanted to say to the Mormons, "Ah, yes, the Salamander!"

 _> clever and crafty lizard, i. (me? those personal pronouns  
> always trip me up.)_ 

I? Me? Mine?

 _> plug and play, indeed._  

The three great lies of history:

1.The check is in the mail   
2.I won't come in your mouth  
3.Plug and Play  

_> i always wondered what they did with the rest of the pig.  
> or is that your boyfriend's stock in trade? ;-)_

You hush. That whole dead animals thing is "so 15 minutes ago" according to ArtDrone or whoever, so he's on to MRIs and CAT scans now. He's a genius, you see. Which excuses him from doing the washing up, as we all know that Pablo Picasso never did the dishes. 

_> are you trying to seduce me, mrs. robinson?_

Would you *like* me to seduce you? 

_> right, you've got me. i sing in the shower, too._

But there are the best acoustics in there! All that tile in an enclosed space. That's how we did that incredible reverb on "Peculiar Situation" - I went in the bog to warm up, and Maddie thought it sounded so good in there that we just ran a mic cable and a headphone box in there. 

_> the greatest hits of the 70's, 80's and today._

Wot, no 60's? And I had a hankering for "Sugar, Sugar" myself. 

_> would you like to hear me do my robert smith impression?_

Um, do I have to? 

 _> nasty drug. stay away from it. only useless tossers need  
> said ego support supplement._ 

Not my cup of tea. Reminds me of Jeremy Kane and NYC wankers. It makes me flip out if I try to take now and I flip out enough as it is, I don't need any artificial help. Sorry, but for the most part, drugs bore me. I hate what they do to people, I hate the way they make me feel. If I want escapism, that's what booze is for.

_> and stay away from weblen, you nasty little girl, you!_

But you don't understand! The Theory of the Leisure Class changed my life! 

_> a little political science is a dangerous thing._

Oh, I could care less about politics. I can't vote in any country, so what does it matter? 

_> why not? it's more entertaining than those naughty  
> webpages. ;-)_

Naughty webpages... Mmmm. <Homer Simpson drool noise> You know any good ones? www.SkankyHoBoys.com? 

Shit, I have to run to soundcheck. Catch you later.

K 

* * *

 

From: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: the pork-bellied pot calling the kettle black 

 

 _> As my brother always wanted to say to the Mormons, "Ah,  
> yes, the Salamander!"_ 

what are you on about, my good woman? i'm scared of mormons.

actually, it's a childhood nickname i've always loathed, to tell the truth. but i get free e-mail through one of the people i actually went to school with, and he assigned it to me for a user name as a cruel joke. 

 _> The three great lies of history:_  
> 1\. The check is in the mail  
> 2\. I won't come in your mouth  
> 3\. Plug and Play 

4\. just a *little* bit of poland... 

 _> You hush. That whole dead animals thing is "so 15 minutes_  
> ago' according to ArtDrone or whoever, so he's on to  
> CRT's and MRI scans now. 

oh, is he? i've got some nice colonoscopy screenshots i could send him. i was thinking of having them made into a christmas card. merry christmas from thom's bowels.

 _> as we all know that Pablo Picasso never did the dishes._  

and pablo picasso was never called an ASSHOLE.

_> Would you like me to seduce you?_

 haven't we had this conversation already? ;-)

 _> But there are the best acoustics in there! All that tile  
> in an enclosed space._ 

you do, though! you get the most remarkable reverb in the strangest places. i think one of the best takes i ever did was lying halfway down a marble staircase, completely off my face on cheap wine. i sounded like i was at the bottom of a well, which was precisely what we wanted.

_> Wot, no 60's? And I had a hankering for "Sugar, Sugar"  
> myself._

the archies? i was always waiting for the jesus and mary chain to cover that. can't you just hear the heroin chic version, dripping with a heavy scots accent?

 _> > Would you like to hear me do my Robert Smith impression?  
_ _>  
_ _> Um, do I have to?_  

::dons fright wig and dances around drunkenly:: let me take your hands i'm shaking like milk... 

 _> Not my cup of tea. Did it once. Flipped out. I flip out  
> enough as it is, I don't need any artificial help._ 

i can sympathise. i'm a disagreeable enough little bastard straight, i can't imagine what i'd be like on coke. fucking horrible, i'd imagine.

> Sorry, but for the most part, drugs bore me. I hate what  
> they do to people, I hate the way they make me feel. If I  
> want escapism, that's what booze is for. 

completely agree. it's always been my favourite poison.

 _> But you don't understand! The Theory of the Leisure Class_  
> changed my life! 

you know all about the weblen scandals, don't you? he was thrown out of the university for having a steamy affair with the daughter of the dean of the university or something like that. 

_> Oh, I could care less about politics. I can't vote in any  
> country, so what does it matter?_

sigh... apathy. every vote you don't fucking cast might as well be a vote for the bad guys. you do know that, right?

 _> Naughty webpages... Mmmm.  <Homer Simpson drool noise> You  
_ _> know any good ones? www.SkankyHoBoys.com?_  

and what, pray tell, is a skanky ho boy? i'm afraid to ask...

_> Shit, I have to run to soundcheck. Catch you later._

well, break a leg and all that kind of thing. you know where to find me. 

much luff,

t.

* * *

 

From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
To: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
Subject: peter piper picked a peck of pickled pot-bellied pigs (I cna't keep up.) 

 

Please pardon any sloppines and typoons, I'm more than slightly pissed on free aftershow booze. Yum yum. Beth and Emma fighting again, godbless'em. I love my band. Want to kill them, but love them all dearly. 3 shows! 3 shows into the fcuking tour, and they're at each others throats. This is going to be a loooooong 2 weeks. 

_> what are you on about, my good woman? i'm scared of  
> mormons._

As well you should be. Don't you know that the Book of Mormon was supposedly handed to Joseph Smith, originally written in Hieroglyphics, because that's what the ancient egyptians wrote in. (Never mind that bible written in Hebrew, not egyptian...) So, out in the middle of the Salt Lake desert, a Salamander appears to Josepth Smith and hands him pair of x-ray specs with which to read said book of moron. 

Swenyways, when Mormons came round our house testifying, or whatever it is mormons do (sincerest apologies if you are mormon, will get to point soon.) my big brother stands at door, looks over top of specs and says in booming posh voice "Ah yes!!! The salamander!!!"

Mormons run away, never come back. Wish could figure out similar tactic to use with Jehovah's Witlesses. ;-) 

 _> but i get free e-mail through one of the people i_  
> actually went to school with, and he assigned it to me  
> for a user name as a cruel joke.

Your frends suck!

 _> 4) just a *little* bit of poland... _  

Must ask. Very drunk, so don't care if you don't respect me in the morning. Always thought that little dance you did was apropo of Hitler invading France.

 _> merry christmas from thom's bowels._  

You send that, me sending you Pap smear for your birthday.

What colour are your bowels? My gran says that when she was in India, they did autopsies of locals, and their colons were stained bright yellow from too much turmeric. Think this was simply old wife's tale to get us to stop eating so much curry, as is only dish I can cook.

 _> and pablo picasso was never called an ASSHOLE._  

"He was only 5'3", girls could not resist his stare..."

Think I called Damien much worse than asshole first night I slept with him.

 _> > Would you like me to seduce you?_  
>  
> haven't we had this conversation already? :-)

And you still haven't given me an answer! <ducks> 

_> you do, though! you get the most remarkable reverb in the  
> strangest places._

St. Pauls' Whispering Gallery. Always wanted to record there, but would be such a cliché, eh? Must futz around with quadreverb and see if can get some sort of weird backwards effect to sound like that.

 _> the archies? i was always waiting for the jesus and mary  
_ _> chain to cover that. can't you just hear the heroin chic  
_ _> version, dripping with a heavy scots accent?_  

ROTFL! You cut that out.

_> <dons fright wig and dances around drunkenly> let me take  
> your hands I'm shaking like milk..._

Turning, turning blue all over the windows and the floor... what the hell is that song about? 

Boooooooze. Mmmm, yes please. Hang on, gots to pour another glass of wine. Aw, damn, lost the glass, have to drink straight from bottle. Dman, I;m spilling it all over me.

 _> you know all about the weblen scandals, don't you? he was_  
> thrown out of the university for having a steamy affair  
> with the daughter of the dean of the university or  
> something like that. 

Oh, come on! Do you really cater to the Jerry Springer theory of history? Should artists and philsophers be jugded by their personal morals or their effect on history?

 _> sigh... apathy. every vote you don't fucking cast might_  
> as well be a vote for the bad guys. you do know that,  
> right? 

You really think it makes a difference? Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. I wanna be in the oligarchy. Who cares? Bloody hell, if there's nothing I can do about it, I just don't want to know. It's all bread and circuses and diversion anyway. 

_> and what, pray tell, is a skanky ho boy? i'm afraid to ask..._

<sigh> gender role reversal. Boys adopting the attributes of the stereotypical female "slut" role - dyed hair, makeup, etc. - to subvert the commonly held pre-conceptions of what "masculine" and "feminine" are. Ooh, I like my "quote"s tonight, don't I? 

_> well, break a leg and all that kind of thing._

Leg broken. Gig amazing and all that. If just being on stage was all there was to it, being a pop star would be all our teenage dreams put togther. It's all the other crap that I hate dealing with. Am I a spoiled brat for thinking this? Damien seems to think that I am. 

Doh! Wine gone. Idea of sobriety not very appealing at present time, so sleep only option.

_> you know where to find me._

Perhaps, but wish you were here, regardless. 

The usual useless 4-letter affectations of affection,

K

* * *

 

From: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: you're a very amusing drunk 

 

_> Please pardon any sloppines and typoons, I'm more than  
> slightly pissed on free aftershow booze. Yum yum._

thank god for after show booze. would any of us get through tours without it? i'm joining you in the drinking stakes tonight. gf visiting her mum, so i'm putting away a bottle of wine as fast as i can. i don't know what the hell to do with myself when i'm not on tour, and i'm not in the studio. i don't do well with unstructured time. i like being drunk by myself (god knows what that says about me) but i guess i'm not by myself if i'm writing to you, am i? are there laws against going on the internet completely piss-faced yet? 

_> Beth and Emma fighting again, godbless'em. I love my  
> band. Want to kill them, but love them all dearly._

band politics. i know that feeling. i'll trade you. we'll give you jonny if you send us emma. :-P then again, i think he'd like that. what are you fighting over now?

how the hell do you know so much about mormons? i'm almost afraid to ask.

i always loved hieroglyphics, though. when i was a little kid, my mum took me and my little brother to see the king tut exhibit at the british museum. brilliant, that was. we all got obsessed with egypt after that. 

 _> Must ask. Very drunk, so don't care if you don't respect_  
> me in the morning. Always thought that little dance you  
> did was apropo of Hitler invading France.

rotfl! um, no, i never thought of that. but it might be good to add to my repertoire. my band would have you believe that i was a fascist, yeah. ;-) right taskmaster, i am. 

_> You send that, me sending you Pap smear for your  
> birthday._

wasn't that in slackers? pap smear. hmmm, feeling a bit rude tonight, but will hold back naughty comments, as this is mixed company. probably worth a lot of money in certain circles. doesn't it make you a bit ill to think that? a bit frightening. people would pay good money (what is bad money, anyway?) for madonna's pap smear. i have nightmares like that. they don't just want my thoughts and my "art" - whatever that is - they want actually pound of flesh and blood. 

 _> What colour are your bowels? My gran says that when she_  
> was in India, they did autopsies of locals, and their  
> colons were stained bright yellow from too much turmeric. 

well, you are just a repository of useless information, aren't you? when was your family in india?

 _> eating so much curry, as is only dish I can cook._  

you can cook curry? and when am i invited to dinner?

 _> "He was only 5'3", girls could not resist his stare..."_  

the girls would turn the colour of an avocado,  
as he'd drive down the street in his el dorado... 

so that's the secret. i'll have to work on my stare. 

_> Think I called Damien much worse than asshole first night  
> I slept with him._

do tell. i don't think damien likes me very much. we rather took the piss out of him on our webpage a few years back, and he's never quite forgiven us. 

_> but would be such a cliché_ _, eh?_

nothing wrong with clichés if you know how to use them effectively. there's a reason they became clichés, and that's cause they're effective. there's such a fine line between something that's genuine, and something that's complete self indulgent wank. 

_> Must futz around with quadreverb and see if can get some  
> sort of weird backwards effect to sound like that._

those digital backwards delays are never as good as the real thing. use analogue tape, flip it, and then run the effects loop. it's much better than that canned digital crap. some things computers can't do. but not many. 

_> Turning, turning blue all over the windows and the  
> floor... what the hell is that song about?_

not really sure. the video was fairly amusing, though. perplexing, but amusing. "the fires outside in the sky look as perfect as cats..." such terrible nonsense it seems now, though i remember it being loaded with significance at the time. 

> Boooooooze. Mmmm, yes please. Hang on, gots to pour  
> another glass of wine. Aw, damn, lost the glass, have to  
> drink straight from bottle. Dman, I;m spilling it all  
> over me.

now there's an appealing thought. we can dress you up, but we can't take you out, can we? 

 _> Oh, come on! Do you really cater to the Jerry Springer_  
> theory of history? Should artists and philsophers _be_  
> judged by their personal morals or their effect on  
> history?

yes, raskolnikov. how far are we willing to take these utilitarian morals of yours? whatever happened to personal responsibility? isn't it just plain hypocrisy, by any other words? 

 _> You really think it makes a difference? Meet the new_  
> boss. Same as the old boss. I wanna be in the oligarchy.  
> Who cares? Bloody hell, if there's nothing I can do about  
> it, I just don't want to know. It's all bread and  
> circuses and diversion anyway. 

you are so wrong. you can do so much about it. they're counting on the fact that if enough people think the way that you do, then no one will do anything. the individual *can* change history. choosing to abnegate your responsibility of decision making is still a decision.

 _> <sigh> gender role reversal. Boys adopting the attributes_  
> of the stereotypical female "slut" role - dyed hair,  
> makeup, etc. - to subvert the commonly held pre-conceptions  
> of what "masculine" and "feminine" are. 

my god, we've actually finally agreed on something. i'll send you photos of me in college, then. <wink> that's what i used to tell people. my parents just used to worry. it's genetic, i tell you. the worry gene.

i have to ask you something now. <watch out, he's intoxicated, so he's feeling bold.> you play on it, don't you? you know what peoples expectations of you are, and so you throw it right back at them, don't you? do it to them before they do it to you. beauty is power, and you use it. have i got it right? 

_> Ooh, I like my "quote"s tonight, don't I?_

"i" "think" that "quotes" "are" "very" "necessary" for the "post-modern" "conversation", don't you? ;-) 

 _> Leg broken. Gig amazing and all that. If just being on_  
> stage was all there was to it, being a pop star would be  
> all our teenage dreams put togther. It's all the other  
> crap that I hate dealing with.

<jumps up and down in agreement> oh, yes! god, how many times have i thought this? fucking crass commercialisation. i might as well have gone into advertising. people who give good schmooze are usually crap artists. and people who are true artists usually give terrible schmooze. some day, when i'm rich enough, i'll hire someone else to do it for me. retire to somewhere really far away, and do everything through middlemen. 

_> Am I a spoiled brat for thinking this? Damien seems to  
> think that I am._

damien doesn't know what he's talking about. i don't think you're a spoiled brat at all. (well, any more than i think i'm a spoiled brat, but then again, that depends on who you ask, doesn't it?) it's not a normal life. i mean, what does he expect you to do? 

_> Perhaps, but wish you were here, regardless._

<blushes> i am fighting it really hard... fighting it... oh! must succumb to the floyd. we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year. running over the same old ground, what have we found? the same old fears... 

oh god, i am so terribly sorry so long and so intoxicated, promise me you won't hate me in the morning...

love,

thom.

 

* * *

 

From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
To: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
Subject: will you still love me tomorrow? 

 

Oh god, I'm so embarrassed. And rather more sober. What the hell did I write to you last night? I'm almost afraid to find out. Oh, my hangover hates me. Ouch, my head.

 _> i don't know what the hell to do with myself when i'm not  
_ _> on tour, and i'm not in the studio. i don't do well with  
_ _> unstructured time._  

Tell you what; I'll swap you. I've got the opposite problem. I can find tons of things to do with myself when I'm not on tour. *I* loathe being bundled up and having my day carved up and handed in chunks to cretins who don't appreciate it. At least when you're an office slave, you do your 8 hours and then you go home. Here, it just never seems to end.

_> i like being drunk by myself (god knows what that says  
> about me)_

It's like the first sign of being an alcoholic or something. I can't believe I quit for nearly a year, while I was pregnant with Ian, and now I'm right back up to half a litre of gin a night. Stress. I think I'm getting an ulcer. So I start to worry about getting ulcers, which only makes me more stressed. ;-) 

 _> but i guess i'm not by myself if i'm writing to you, am i?_  

Nope. That's my theory at least. I'll back you up if you back me up.

_> are there laws against going on the internet completely  
_ _> piss-faced yet?_

I know you're not supposed to go on the radio or the television under the influence. God knows we've broken that law. As has Serge Gainsbourg, har har! 

_> what are you fighting over now?_

Got all day?

I don't even know at this point what they're fighting about. Emma and Beth have been in bands together, they're practically like sisters. And they fight like sisters. God knows what will set it off, but all of a sudden, it's not even about what set it off, but about something Beth did when Emma was 16!

I mean, it started off, fairly reasonably - there was this stupid music journalist who we had a run-in with the last time we were on tour. He was really derogatory and patronising in the interview, kept making all these terrible sexist remarks, and then he ended up completely misquoting us. So this time out, Emma, Maddie and I refused to do the interview, thinking Beth would go along with us. She ends up doing the interview by herself. Whatever, none of us are pleased, but Emma declares World War 3, saying that Beth has always wanted us as her backing band since Day One, etc. etc. etc. 

_> how the hell do you know so much about mormons? i'm  
> almost afraid to ask._

I've just always been interested in weird fringe religions, cults, that sort of thing. 

 _> my mum took me and my little brother to see the king tut_  
> exhibit at the british museum. brilliant, that was. We  
> all got obsessed with egypt after that.

You went to that, too? It's one of those weird generational things - like everyone I've ever talked to our age was obsessed with Egypt as a little kid because of King Tut-mania. Do you know that when I was 7 I was afraid to look at skellingbones, cause I had a nightmare that if you looked at one, you would turn into one? I screamed and cried when my dad held me up to look in the sarcophagus and refused to open my eyes. 

 _> > You send that, me sending you Pap smear for your_  
>> birthday.  
>  
> wasn't that in slackers?

Do you know I've never seen that movie? Defining movie of my generation, and I've never seen it. Though I never see movies. Maddie laughs at me when I tell her I'm film deaf like some people are tone deaf. Alex is the only other person I've ever met like that. He hasn't been to the movies in longer than I have. Damien drives me insane - he'd go to movies every night of the week if he could. And television - oh my god, I've never known anyone as addicted to television. He's got one on constantly in the studio - I don't know how he can think. 

_> hmmm, feeling a bit rude tonight, but will hold back  
> naughty comments, as this is mixed company._

Oh? Naughty comments? Please! I wouldn't have believed you capable of them. <ducks> 

 _> doesn't it make you a bit ill to think that?_ _a bit_  
> frightening. people would pay good money (what is bad  
> money, anyway?)

Not sure. Badmoney - wasn't that another of your 70's supergroups? ;-) 

 _> for madonna's pap smear. i have nightmares like that._  
> they don't just want my thoughts and my "art" - whatever  
> that is - they want actually pound of flesh and blood.

Damien would say something really funny about this, but I'll spare you. It's the whole souvenir mentality, isn't it? I can understand wanting something physical to connect you with your hero. It was like, when I was about 15, my favourite band in the world was Love and Rockets (teenage goth, me. Shut up. But, bloody hell, you're the one quoting Cure lyrics at me.) and I got David J's water bottle at a concert, and I was so chuffed because it actually had some of his saliva in it. Is that sick? I guess, but the fact that I've been there makes it easier for me to understand. I mean, no matter how "big" of a star you become, there's always someone who still makes your knees turn to jelly. 

There comes a point where famous people do loose their peoplehood (Is that a word?) and just become icons. It's like holy relics back in the Middle Ages. But how do you be a normal human, and try to sustain normal human relationships in the middle of all that? 

_> well, you are just a repository of useless information,  
> aren't you? when was your family in india?_

During the war, I think? My grandparents were professional colonists or something. My grandmother was a writer, so she went where the stories were, like a secular academic missionary. They've been everywhere. I'll spare you the details, as it's all very non-PC. 

_> you can cook curry? and when am i invited to dinner?_

Um, whenever you like. Whenever I get the hell off this #$%&#* tour... 

_> do tell. i don't think damien likes me very much._

Don't be fooled. Damien likes to pretend he doesn't like anyone. He really plays up the crotchety bastard routine cause he knows it gets up people's noses. It's his Francis Bacon fixation, you see. People expect it of him, so he gives it to them. 

_> we rather took the piss out of him on our webpage a few  
> years back, and he's never quite forgiven us._

Actually, that would be likely to make him like you more. He's quite capable of taking the piss out of himself, really he is. 

 _> there's such a fine line between something that's_  
> genuine, and something that's complete self indulgent  
> wank.

There's a thin line between self-indulgence and self-parody? "So, like, dude, are you being ironic, or not?" "I... don't... know..." Shit, what is that from? 

 _> those digital backwards delays are never as good as the_  
> real thing. use analogue tape, flip it, and then run the  
> effects loop. it's much better than that canned digital  
> crap.

Hard to do when you're using a computer. ;-) What do I do? Turn the hard drive upside down and jam it back in the machine? I'd love to explain that to the repair man at Sam Ash. Culpa mea, I got suckered into the digital thing, cause it's actually cheaper these days. I far prefer analogue. It's all those frequencies that the ear can't *hear* per se, but one can still feel them. 

_> some things computers can't do. but not many._

My computer can do everything! I'm training Hal to take over all the basic functions. I've got him answering the phone now. I sampled my voice saying a few typical "Kate" things and now he carrying on all my conversations for me. If I can get him to do interviews, then I'll be happy. 

_> not really sure. the video was fairly amusing, though.  
> perplexing, but amusing. _

Yeah, I just remember the bit with the bunkbeds and the eggs and all that. Early 80's concept videos, you really can't beat them, can you? 

 _> "the fires outside in the sky look as perfect as cats..."_  
> such terrible nonsense it seems now, though i remember it  
> being loaded with significance at the time.

"The two of us together again, it's just the same, a stupid game..." I mean, that bit makes sense. 

_> yes, raskolnikov. how far are we willing to take these  
> utilitarian morals of yours?_

Try me and find out, baby! ;-) 

_> whatever happened to personal responsibility? isn't it  
> just plain hypocrisy, by any other words?_

Bloody hell, why are you doing this to me? I'm on tour; I'm supposed to be a walking automaton of "setlist, beer, sex" I don't want to have to think about bloody ethics in politics. Where the hell did this conversation come from? I was drunk when we started it - what were we talking about? Hang on. <digs back through depths of inbox> 

The Weblen scandal. Right, let's think. What are the issues: should one judge public figures - philosophers or artists - by their personal morals or by their art. Artists are generally not nice people. We're not paid to be nice people. (Pardon me, I'm cranky, I'm hungover, I had 4 hours of sleep) We're paid to express the fucking inarticulate yearnings and emotions of a sick fucking society. In order to express it, we've got to experience it. Pass me some fucking heroin and some 14 year old rent boys now! <grin>

 _> you are so wrong. you can do so much about it. they're_  
> counting on the fact that if enough people think the way  
> that you do, then no one will do anything. the individual  
> *can* change history. 

I don't deny that the individual can change history. But usually not in the way that one expects. The universe is far too random for all that. I think it's hypocritical for me to pretend to have an opinion on something that I don't. I can't fucking vote, anyway - I'm not a US citizen, and I haven't been back in the UK long enough to qualify to vote here. When it comes down to it, I don't have a home, anyway.

Elections are such a fucking joke, anyway. You missed some great arguments at the Groucho while Alex was running for MP. The major parties have been so homogenised in order to appeal to a majority, and anyone who's actually got anything decent to say or do will be so fucking marginalised that they're never going to get in anyway. We live in a culture where Coke vs. Pepsi, Nike vs. Adidas, Slur vs. Mirage is presented as a major personal lifestyle decision. Even rebellion is pre-packaged into a palatable form. In the face of that, I think apathy is the only viable reaction. 

_> choosing to abnegate your responsibility of decision  
> making is still a decision._

And if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Boy, you are Mr. Seventies today, aren't you?

_> my god, we've actually finally agreed on something._

Why does everyone tell me I'm so argumentative? God, just because I have opinions and am not afraid to express them.

 _> i'll send you photos of me in college, then.  <wink>_ 

Ooh, please do! <winks back suggestively>

_> it's genetic, i tell you. the worry gene._

Is that it? I'm turning into my own granny. I *enjoy* worrying. I honestly think I must. If things start to go too well, I start to worry about it. ;-) 

 _> you play on it, don't you? you know what peoples_  
> expectations of you are, and so you throw it right back  
> at them, don't you?

Well, duh! No shit, Sherlock! Why is this such a surprise to you? 

_> "i" "think" that "quotes" "are" "very" "necessary" for the  
> "post-modern" "conversation", don't you? ;-)_

Stop it. My brain hurts. If I could press a button and blast 3 words out of the English language, I think they'd be "post-modern" "Cyber-" and "ironic." 

 _> people who give good schmooze are usually crap artists._  
> and people who are true artists usually give terrible  
> schmooze.

Hah hah. Too true, too true. But it depends on your definition of art, doesn't it? The art of the scam is an art form in and of itself, some might say. 

 _> some day, when i'm rich enough, i'll hire someone else to_  
> do it for me. retire to somewhere really far away, and do  
> everything through middlemen. 

I'll program Hal to do it for you, if you like.

 _> i don't think you're a spoiled brat at all. (well, any_  
> more than i think i'm a spoiled brat, but then again,  
> that depends on who you ask, doesn't it?)

Thom, you *are* a spoiled brat. <ducks> 

_> it's not a normal life. i mean, what does he expect you  
> to do?_

He tells me over and over to build up some sort of persona to use to deal with that world. But why should I have to? Why should I have to live in such an insane world that I have to pretend to be someone else in order to get through it? Bloody hell, that's what I've been trying to get away from all my life.

It's like, when I was working as a fucking office slob, I was no good at putting on the Corporate Whore Office Slave persona, and the Rock Star persona feels just as phoney. 

_> oh god, i am so terribly sorry so long and so  
> intoxicated,_

Why are you apologising? Who started with the long and intoxicated e-mails here? I'm glad you wrote, cause you're just about the only thing between me and sticking a pen through our singer's eye right now. 

_> promise me you won't hate me in the morning..._

Never. So long as you don't snore. Or leave the toilet seat up. ;-) 

The usual doses of maudlin self pity,

Kate

* * *

 

From: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: Re: will you still love me tomorrow? 

 

ok, i've got to try to keep this short, as my gf has been complaining about the amount of time i've been spending on line. but keeping things short seems impossible with you... i'm not complaining - trust me. i just want to give your mail the attention it deserves. when someone makes me yell at the monitor, at least it's a sign you've affected me. or something. 

ttyl,

t.

* * *

 

From: salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
Subject: You are a bad influence!

 

this is ridiculous. it's about 2 in the morning, my gf is in bed asleep upstairs, and i'm creeping down to the computer to write to you. i feel like we're having an affair or something, when the truth is that you piss me off so much i can't not respond. ;-)

no, wait, that came out wrong. you make me think, and i appreciate that, even if i do disagree with you, it makes me have to stop and consider *why* i disagree with you. 

_> Oh god, I'm so embarrassed._

you have no reason to be embarrassed. yet. ;-) hang on, i want to get a glass of wine myself. ah, that's better. 

 _> *I* loathe being bundled up and having my day carved up_  
> and handed in chunks to cretins who don't appreciate it.  
> At least when you're an office slave, you do your 8 hours  
> and then you go home. Here, it just never seems to end.

no, this is all true. i tend to forget these things. i just can't stand not to be busy. i want whatever it is i don't have. typical. it's all fucking horrible. 

_> It's like the first sign of being an alcoholic or  
> something._

<sticks fingers in ears> i can't hear you, la la la la... 

_> I think I'm getting an ulcer. So I start to worry about  
> getting ulcers, which only makes me more stressed. ;-)_

lol! i worry about how much i'm worrying. 

 _> I know you're not supposed to go on the radio or the_  
> television under the influence. God knows we've broken  
> that law.

i did not know that. is that an american law or something? 

_> As has Serge Gainsbourg, har har!_

what was that, the french grammies where he told whitney houston "i want to fuck you!" hysterical. 

_> Got all day?_

actually, yes. ;-) or rather, all night. 

 _> Emma and Beth have been in bands together, they're  
> practically like sisters. And they fight like sisters_ 

yup. know all about that. it's strangely reassuring, band politics, the way all bands are fundamentally the same. dysfunctional families. i'm surprised there aren't headshrinkers in america who specialise in dysfunctional bands. ;-)

Or are there? I would be surprised at nothing these days... 

_> You went to that, too? It's one of those weird  
> generational things-_

egypt, star wars, the smiths, reagan/thatcher, fear of nuclear war, personal computers. talkin' bout my generation, etc. isn't it nice to know you're a demographic? 

 _> Do you know that when I was 7 I was afraid to look at_  
> skellingbones, cause I had a nightmare that if you looked  
> at one, you would turn into one?

trying to remember what my childhood fears were... the usual... the dark, heights. oh, and clowns. i know it's a cliche now but i loathe clowns.

 _> > Wasn't that in Slackers?_  
>  
> Do you know I've never seen that movie?

really? oh, you have to see it! i've got it on tape somewhere. i'll lend it to you. 

_> Though I never see movies. Maddie laughs at me when I  
> tell her I'm film deaf like some people are tone deaf. _

film deaf? odd concept. what, you don't like them, you just don't appreciate them, or you have no discrimination when it comes to them? film is one of the media i can completely lose myself in. perhaps why i was so thrilled involved with _please kill me_. i don't know if i could ever see myself as an actor - though people have told me i might be quite good at it. but i'd love to be involved in writing one or something. 

_> He hasn't been to the movies in longer than I have. _

really? wow, i go to movies perhaps... well, actually, come to think of it, i never go out to them. i just rent them on video. 

_> And television - oh my god, I've never known anyone as  
> addicted to television._

ugh. i fucking loathe television. it's just fucking horrible. i can't watch it for more than 20 minutes or i find myself screaming at it. but then again, it really is a drug. it eats time like a fucking drug, and it's addictive like one. you plonk yourself down in front of one, get up and it's 6 hours later and you have no idea what you've been doing. people use it in place of conversation, don't they? 

_> Oh? Naughty comments? Please! I wouldn't have believed  
> you capable of them. <ducks>_

i can be plenty naughty, believe you me! i just... um, choose to repress that side of me cause i... um don't really like it. i'm not sure why. i have an id, really i do, it's just very repressed most of the time. then again, sometimes i feel like i'm just completely one big, screaming id. it's compensation, perhaps. blame it on my all-boys boarding school. i never really learned what to say to girls; they still scare me. 

_> Not sure. Badmoney - wasn't that another of your 70's  
> supergroups? ;-)_

badfinger. eddie money. i don't know what it is about you that brings out my crap album rock tendencies. i loathe all this stuff, really i do. i swear! 

_> Damien would say something really funny about this, but  
> I'll spare you._

thank you. 

 _> I guess, but the fact that I've been there makes it_  
> easier for me to understand. I mean, no matter how "big"  
> of a star you become, there's always someone who still  
> makes your knees turn to jelly.

har har, i guess i see your point. i was a fucking mess the first time i ever met michael from ROM, who was a really huge hero of mine during the 80's. so who turns your knees to jelly, then? 

 _> There comes a point where famous people do loose their_  
> peoplehood (Is that a word?) and just become icons. It's  
> like holy relics back in the Middle Ages.

hmm. interesting point. there really is a religious element to it, isn't there? i suppose people have always had obsessionary tendencies, but it used to be directed towards religious adulation. i've read stories about nuns having orgasms contemplating the sacred heart of jesus and things like that. whoops! i better curtail this fascination if you come from a religious background. then again, you mock mormons, so who knows. 

i suppose before the days of mass media, it just took longer for the cult of personality to spread across vast distances. if you think about it, that must have been how christianity started - single charismatic saints and missionaries slowly spreading this hysteria across the continent. i mean, they did it properly in ancient rome, didn't they, deifying their emperors and the like?

_> secular academic missionary. They've been everywhere.  
> I'll spare you the details, as it's all very non-PC._

secular academic missionaries? this gets weirder by the minute. no, please explain. i thought i read somewhere that your parents were some sort of london scenesters or something.

_> Um, whenever you like. Whenever I get the hell off this  
> #$%&#* tour..._

i'll hold you to that, you know. i love curry, you know. you cook, i'll bring over the videos. i can't cook to save my life, or so my gf tells me. she's the domestic one, all into gardening and that sort of thing. i've been told to stay out the kitchen or else.

<snip damien> 

_> People expect it of him, so he gives it to them._

just like you, huh? perfect couple, aren't you? ;-) are you defending him as an artist because you actually *like* his art, or because you're in love with him as a person? 

 _> There's a thin line between self-indulgence and self_  
> parody? "So, like, dude, are you being ironic, or not?"  
> "I... don't... know..." Shit, what is that from?

is that the simpsons? or is it that addictively vile new cartoon... what's it called? the one with all the vomit and the foul-mouthed children. oh, help me out here, you're an american. oh, right, you don't have a telly, do you? 

 _> I got suckered into the digital thing, cause it's_  
> actually cheaper these days. I far prefer analogue. It's  
> all those frequencies that the ear can't *hear* per se,  
> but one can still feel them.

ugh, no you can feel the difference, you really can. i used to be so scared of all that gear crap, until we were lucky enough that our producer sat down and explained it all to us. i never really knew about all that frequency stuff - people sort of drill into your head that digital must be better because it's new, of course - but not necessarily. you always think that people going on about analogue and vinyl are just hopeless old luddites, but then you discover that there really *is* a difference, in terms of audio technology, and there is a reason that you should use analogue equipment. 

 _> _ Yeah, I just remember the bit with the bunkbeds and the  
> eggs and all that. Early 80's concept videos, you really  
> can't beat them, can you?

well, *we* try. though you obviously don't. <ducks> 

_> "The two of us together again, it's just the same, a  
> stupid game..." I mean, that bit makes sense._

but i don't care if you don't, and i don't feel if you don't. and i don't want it if you don't. and i won't say it if you won't say it first... oh oh oh, let's go to bed...  

 _> > Yes, Raskolnikov. How far are we willing to take these_  
>> utilitarian morals of yours?  
>  
> Try me and find out, baby! ;-)

hmmmm. tempting. no! stop it. all this talk of going to bed is getting me carried away. ;-) bloody hell, we have to stop winking at one another like this. people will start to talk. 

_> Bloody hell, why are you doing this to me?_

me doing this to you? you're the one that brings up all these fucking heavy topics and then gets upset when i respond. ;-) 

 _> Artists are generally not nice people. We're not paid to_  
> be nice people. (Pardon me, I'm cranky, I'm hungover, I  
> had 4 hours of sleep) We're paid to express the fucking  
> inarticulate yearnings and emotions of a sick fucking  
> society. 

bwah hah hah hah! i could kiss you for that. i quite literally laughed out loud the first time i read this. i hope you don't mind, cause i'm going to borrow it, next time someone slags me off for throwing a "temper tantrum."

 _> I don't deny that the individual can change history. But_  
> usually not in the way that one expects. The universe is  
> far too random for all that. 

yeah, random individuals can change society rapidly. world war two was basically started by one sick individual. but it's up to the rest of the silent majority to band together and express their discontent with what those sick individuals are doing to us.

 _> I think it's hypocritical for me to pretend to have an  
> opinion on something that I don't._ 

bollocks, kate! i have yet to encounter one thing you don't have an opinion on!

 _> I can't fucking vote, anyway - I'm not a US citizen, and I_  
> haven't been back in the UK long enough to qualify to  
> vote here.

this is also fucking bollocks, kate. you can register as an overseas citizen and vote. thatcher made it ridiculously easy for non-resident citizens to vote, because they were more likely to be tax exiles, and therefore tories. you're just lazy, that's all. 

 _> Elections are such a fucking joke, anyway. You missed_  
> some great arguments at the Groucho while Alex was  
> running for MP.

there were arguments behind that? i thought it was just someone's idea of a sick joke. i didn't think anything except a lot of cocaine and a lot of ego-massaging went on behind the closed doors of the groucho. you're really a member there? god, that's appalling. 

 _> The major parties have been so homogenised in order to_  
> appeal to a majorities, and anyone who's actually got  
> anything decent to say or do will be so fucking  
> marginalised that they're never going to get in anyway.

you know, i can't contradict you. but that's such a fucking cynical attitude. i don't want to have to be that cynical. i'd like to be optimistic enough to believe the average person has a hell of a lot more intelligence than they are given credit for. 

 _> We live in a culture where Coke vs. Pepsi, Nike vs._  
> Adidas, Slur vs. Mirage is presented as a major personal  
> lifestyle decision. Even rebellion is pre-packaged into a  
> palatable form. In the face of that, I think apathy is  
> the only viable reaction.

i agree with your premise, but not your conclusion. apathy is precisely what that climate is *trying* to breed. we don't have to go along with it. by doing nothing, you condone the entire system. perhaps the things i do will never change a thing, but goddammit, i'm at least going to go down shouting. 

_> Boy, you are Mr. Seventies today, aren't you?_

<whines and stamps feet> i'm not! i don't know why you bring out this side in me. 70's cock rock, naughty sexual comments, what's next? good lord. i'm regressing. 

_> Why does everyone tell me I'm so argumentative? God, just  
> because I have opinions and am not afraid to express them._

and you were just telling me about 3 paragraphs ago, and i quote, that you had no opinions and that it would be hypocritical of you to pretend that you did. hoisted on your own petard, i do believe ms. gordon! 

 _> > I'll send you photos of me in college, then. <wink>_  
>  
> Ooh, please do! <winks suggestively>

i'll look. the press seems to be quite fond of printing embarrassing old photos of me as a goff, though. 

 _> Is that it? I'm turning into my own granny. I *enjoy*_  
> worrying. I honestly think I must. If things start to go  
> too well, I start to worry about it. ;-)

what did i tell you? i worry that i worry too much. 

 _> > You know what peoples_  
>> expectations of you are, and so you throw it right back  
>> at them, don't you?  
>  
> Well, duh! No shit, Sherlock! Why is this such a surprise  
> to you?

i don't know. one tends to think of being cynical and calculating as a bad thing, though strangely it seems to fit into the rest of your contradictory personality. i know you hate when people say this, but you really are quite different than anything i was expecting. 

 _> Stop it. My brain hurts. If I could press a button and_  
> blast 3 words out of the English language, I think they'd  
> be "post-modern" "Cyber-" and "ironic."

hah hah. what words would i get rid of? "new" as a prefix, as in "new lad" and "new labour" and the like. "product." actually, i quite like that word, i just don't like it applied to me. ;-) what else? god, there are too many. i care too much about the english language to allow it to be polluted by terms like "downsizing" and "multi-national" as a noun. 

 _> But it depends on your definition of art, doesn't it? The_  
> art of the scam is an art form in and of itself, some  
> might say.

who might say? your boyfriend there? 

_> Thom, you *are* a spoiled brat.  <ducks>_

i know. i fully admit to being a petulant, spoiled, difficult brat. but i'm lucky enough (or unlucky enough, depending on your viewpoint) to be in an industry that indulges, in fact, encourages one's most brattish behaviour. it goes back to what you were saying about great artists not necessarily being nice people. 

 _> Why should I have to live in such an insane world that I_  
> have to pretend to be someone else in order to get  
> through it?

i've asked myself the same question a thousand times. this industry that we both work in is just not set up for sensitive or intelligent people. it's just not. or perhaps it's the entire world. but *especially* this industry. it's that butterfly on a pin thing - they don't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, they want to keep up fucking unbalanced and insecure because that's what produces the product they're making so much fucking money off. am i sounding intensely paranoid again? i hate talking about this. it's like talking about the fucking office when you're not there. but somehow, you find your life so dragged into your work you can't not talk about it. 

 _> It's like, when I was working as a fucking office slob, I_  
> was no good at putting on the Corporate Whore Office  
> Slave persona, and the Rock Star persona feels just as  
> phoney. 

and you can get so consumed in your multiple layers of personality that you start to forget which one is truly you.

 _> you're just about the only thing between me and sticking  
> a pen through our singer's eye right now._ 

that is really not a good sign, considering what sort of a temper i have!

 _> Never. So long as you don't snore. Or leave the toilet  
> seat up. ;-)_ 

hmmm. i don't know what my bad habit are, really. i'll ask my gf, as she seems to keep a running tab... oh god no, that would be suicidal. she already thinks we're having a cyber-affair. ;-)

my god, it's 5am, which means i've been on this computer writing to you for 3 hours now. i really better go, or i'm going to catch it. take care of yourself, and no sticking pencils through anyone's eyes. ;-) 

much love,

thom

* * *

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once the Charms' UK tour is over, Kate Gordon tries to turn her burgeoning internet friendship with Thom Eboracum into an IRL friendship by inviting him to dinner at the loft she shares with Damien. Things don't really go according to plan, as Thom's Aggro-Zombie act cracks slightly, to reveal a playful, childlike side.

Two weeks, 12 gigs, god knows how many arguments, and one very expensive long distance phone bill later, the tour from hell was finally over. Although it was not ending on any friendlier note than it had started, at least Emma and Beth had calmed to an icy truce instead of screaming at each other ever night. We had another 3 weeks off, and then the tour of America was starting, though, hopefully, after slinking off to their respective corners, the argument would be forgotten by then. With the film shooting over, Beth and Maddie were returning to New York City, while Emma was spending the brief respite with Klaus in Berlin.

"Is it alright if I invited a friend over for supper tonight?" I asked nervously, hoping that Damien would not notice the quaver in my voice.

"Sure," shrugged Damien, padding through the kitchen in his bathrobe, newspaper clenched in the crook of his arm as he headed off for a bath. "Where are we going?"

"No, actually, I was going to cook," I ventured. "I thought we'd eat here."

Damien turned around, fixing me with a quizzical look, one eyebrow raised and one narrowed. "You? Cook?" he asked, as if the very thought was intensely amusing.

"I can cook. Well, curry at least," I responded defensively.

"So who's the special guest, then?" Damien chuckled.

"My friend Thom," I squeaked in a tiny voice. I had been hoping not to have to tell him, and avoid the teasing that was sure to follow. "Yes, Thom Eboracum," I added before he could get a jibe in.

Damien grinned, his face positively lighting up with mischief. "Your little red-headed boyfriend."

"He's not my bloody boyfriend!" I sputtered in protest. "I just really admire his work. I'm flattered that he even notices us, to be honest."

Undeterred, Damien hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter, grabbed one of the apples I had set aside for cooking, and bit into it. The wicked grin on his face should have warned me that he wasn't serious, but I just couldn't help rising to the bait. "You have such a crush on him, it's almost comical."

"I do not have a crush!" I snapped back. "And don't you start getting all jealous on me."

"Why on earth would I be jealous?" Damien shrugged, using the edge of his sleeve to wipe the juice off his chin. "I think it's adorable, to be honest." He tried to rearrange his face back to 'concerned boyfriend' but seemed to be unable to stop his eyebrows from shooting lasciviously up his forehead. "Besides... anything or any _one_ that makes _you_ randy increases _my_ chances of getting a leg over tonight."

I sputtered, incoherent with rage for a moment, but his grin made it impossible for me to be angry with him. Seizing a dishtowel, I lashed out and snapped it at his legs. "Get off! Now get out of here and leave me to my cooking."

"You've never cooked for me," Damien sniffed, feigning hurt, though his eyes shone with mirth.

"You don't like home cooking," I pointed out.

"I like curry," he rejoined hopefully.

"Well, you can have some tonight, if there's any left. Go do some fucking work. Don't you have an art world to scandalize?" I directed sternly.

Slipping down from the counter, he slid his arms around my waist and kissed me gently. "I'm serious. I know you, I know what you're like. You wouldn't be _you_ if you weren't slightly boy-crazy. I genuinely think it's cute. I don't care where you get your appetite, so long as you come home to eat."

 

Thankfully, Damien retreated to his studio and stayed down there for the entire afternoon, only the occasional sounds of banging and construction filtering up to the kitchen, where I stood chopping vegetables and mixing spices.

There was something reassuring and comfortable about cooking, even in an unfamiliar kitchen. The smell of frying onions and curry spices always reminded me of my parents house when I was a little girl, with funny people in brightly coloured velvets and silks balancing plates of curry and glasses of wine in their hands as they sat on the floor in the parlour, talking long into the night. During those parties, my brother and I were allowed to stay up, gorging ourselves on papadums and chutney, listening to the adults growing steadily more animated as the empty wine bottles piled up in the kitchen.

One by one, the vegetables and the spices went in until the loft started to fill with the exotic smell, bringing back the memories in a powerful rush. Curry was always my father's meal, and it was my special job to help him chop the onions, holding a gulp of beer in my mouth so that my eyes wouldn't tear up. Though invariably, I would swallow the beer and my father would tease me mercilessly, tickling me until I shook with laughter through the reflexive tears. If I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, holding my turmeric stained hands to my nose, I could practically see the huge kitchen in the rambling old Victorian house in Chelsea, the walls daubed with his fanciful murals.

For hours, I could stand stirring it, bending over occasionally to taste it, never following any recipe, but simply adding whatever I sensed it needed, so that no two meals were ever the same. It was such a familiar ritual, I no longer needed to even think about it. Sag Paneer simmering on the stove, rice slowly steaming in a pot, cucumbers and daal, chutney, papadums, bananas… fuck! Where were the bananas? My dad always claimed you had to make the curry just slightly hotter than you could stand it, then top the dish with fresh bananas to cool it down. I couldn't eat curry without them - it would be blasphemous! If my father were dead, he would be rolling in his grave at the thought.

Glancing up at the clock, I started to fret. 5:45? Thom said he would be here at 6:00. Shit, I still had to change, I realised, brushing the cumin seeds from my hair. Dashing back into the bedroom, I peeled off my dirty jeans and stained T-shirt and pulled on a presentable dress. 5:50. There was no way I could even make it down to the cornershop in time. Perhaps the restaurant downstairs had…

At 5:52 the doorbell rang. How the bloody hell could he be early? Throwing on a pair of shoes, I dashed down the stairs before Damien could get a chance to respond - now that would be disastrous.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I snarled at the doorbell, ringing again just as I turned the stairs down to the first floor landing. Impatient, wasn't he? Taking the last four or five stairs in a single bound, I took a deep breath, tucked a strand of unruly hair behind my ear, then swung the door open as nonchalantly as humanly possible.

I had forgotten how small he was; tiny, frail and childlike, his upturned face filled with irritation, one eye wide and curious, the other reflectively half-closed, drooping towards his unnaturally high, almost reptilian cheekbones. Unruly tufts of bright red hair stuck out from his head at odd angles, and his clothes seemed too big for him, the cuffs of his checked blue button-down shirt hanging out below the cuffs of his leather jacket, down past his knuckles, and his jeans bunched up around his ankles, only adding to the air of a defiant child.

"Hi." In an instant, the annoyance seemed to drain out of his face, genuine pleasure dusting across his lips. When he smiled, he transformed instantly from slightly odd-looking to stunningly beautiful, with his full lips and his impossible cheekbones.

"Can I ask you a huge favour?" I choked, stumbling over my own words. Somehow, wrapped in the generic safety of the computer type face, I had forgotten how absolutely penetrating his eyes were. Christ, why did he have to be so shockingly good-looking when I was trying so hard to be serious and nonsexual?

"Of course," he shrugged, broadening his smile as he twitched his shoulders in agreement.

"Bananas!" I stuttered.

"Come again?" he bent closer, cocking his ear towards me.

"We need to buy bananas. Can you drive me down to the supermarket?"

"Oh. Yes." He grinned, gesturing his head back towards his car. I followed him dumbly, too intimidated to speak, forgetting the kilobytes of conversation we had burned through on the internet in the past two weeks. Walking over to the passenger side of an old Fiat, he unlocked the door and held it open for me. Now this was not a rock star car - this was the car of someone who couldn't be bothered with material goods, quite a shock after Damien's Mini and Alex and Em's convertible. Folding my long legs into the tiny space, I tried to make myself comfortable. "Sorry about the mess - Oh, just chuck those books in the back seat," he directed, piling a stack of dog-eared paperbacks onto an already cluttered seat. "Which way are we going?"

"Out to the end of Shad Thames, and then turn left," I directed.

"So how was your tour?" wondered Thom out loud, picking up a battered case off the dash board and propping a pair of chunky plastic glasses onto his nose.

"It was… um, well, you know… you've heard already… I didn't know you wore glasses," I ventured, trying to change the subject, yet cursing how stupid my own voice sounded.

"Only to drive, and to read, and to… Shiteing bollocking bastard! Get the bloody hell over in your own lane, you fucking imbecilic cretin!" he suddenly exploded, veering out into traffic and cutting off a large delivery lorry three times the size of his sub-compact car. Clutching the handle of the door, I closed my eyes and prepared to meet my maker, but Thom swerved again, jamming his foot down onto the accelerator with uncharacteristic spite, and the little car lurched forwards, out of the danger. "Did you see that moron?" he blustered, gritting his teeth in annoyance as he leaned forward over the steering wheel, resembling nothing so much as a tiny but ferocious Jack Russell terrier.

"Actually, I think he had right of way," I whispered, wishing my heart would stop thumping and return to its customary speed, but Thom showed no sign of hearing me.

"Is that it over there?" 

I nodded, tightening my white-knuckled grip on the door handle as he swerved across three lanes of traffic to turn into the parking lot of Sainsburys. "Remind me never to get in a car with you again," I muttered under my breath, climbing out of the car and stumbling over toward the shopping baskets on the lumps of jelly that my knees seemed to have become. Although I was tempted to tell him that I would simply meet him back at the loft, somehow I managed to purchase a bunch of bananas, get back in the car and drive the half mile back to Damien's studio without serious bodily injury. Thom laughed it off amicably between the poisonous outbursts directed at the other drivers. After the shock had worn off, it seemed amusing, almost endearing, though I was rather relieved to arrive back home in one piece.

"Oh wait, I nearly forgot," announced Thom, digging in the back of his car, and pulling out a brown paper bag. "I'd be a terrible dinner guest if I didn't bring a bottle of wine. Or, um, jug of wine, as the case may be."

"Oh, that is sweet of you," I gushed, pushing open the door to the building and gesturing for him to follow, wishing I could think of something more witty and erudite to say. After the rapid fire e-mails of the past few weeks, he must be finding me terribly boring, I thought to myself with a sinking heart, feeling the evening slipping away from me. "Come in, meet Damien," I finally offered, padding up the stairs, and stopping on the landing for the studio instead of continuing up toward the loft.

Nervousness quickly flickered across his face; his pale skin was so transparent you could practically see the emotions behind his eyes.

"Don't worry, he doesn't bite," I assured him with a laugh, knocking softly at the door then barging in, Thom dragging behind me. "Dame… where are you, honey?" I called out, then followed the wet-sounding thuds to a platform built into the floor at the furthest end, by the windows closest to the river. "Hi," I greeted, walking over and standing beside Damien, then looked back at Thom. Beaming warmly, Damien stood up when he saw me, leaning over to kiss me like the perfect boyfriend. "Thom, this is my boyfriend, Damien. Damien, this is Thom."

"Delighted," rumbled Damien, surprising me with his politeness. Quite frankly, I'd been expecting him to make some sort of performance, but he extended his hand towards Thom.

"Hi…" Thom reached out to take Damien's hand, then suddenly winced and dropped his arm, recoiling at the sight of Damien's arm drenched up to the elbow in some sort of thick, viscous, blood-red fluid that I hoped was only paint. Fear flooded across Thom's face, his good eye widening in horror as his gaze darted about the room. I had been staying there for so long that I had become accustomed, even blasé to the freak show carnival of horrors that comprised Damien's working space, but Thom was obviously unprepared.

"Come on, we're about to eat," I nagged Damien. "Wash up and get ready."

"I'm just in the middle of something…" whined Damien, dripping red goo on the floor. I could see now that it was clearly paint, but Thom looked as if he were about to throw up. "You two start without me, I'll be up when I'm done."

"Ohhh…" I grumbled, looking at him with a pleading expression, but then I noticed Thom swaying slightly and turning a noticeable shade of green. "Alright, we'll save you some." With a quick kiss, I turned around and escorted Thom from the room before he passed out completely. "Sorry, he's in the grip of _inspiration_ ," I explained, rolling my eyes. "I've learned not to bother him when he gets like this."

"Inspiration. Is that what you call it?" muttered Thom, beginning to turn back to a normal colour once he was out in the fresh air of the stairway.

"I know what you're thinking. He's really not a monster…" I ventured defensively.

"Oh, it smells much nicer up here," interrupted Thom, changing the subject successfully. "I lost my appetite back there, but I think I'm getting it back." He smiled weakly, but I could see something odd in his eyes, almost like pity. I knew that look - that _poor Beauty and the Beast_ look, and it irritated me. "Shall I open the wine?"

"Yes, please…" Digging in the cupboards, I managed to find 3 wineglasses and 3 plates that looked as if they'd never actually been used before, rinsing them quickly under the water to get the dust off. Bloody hell, this was a terrible impression we were making on the poor boy. "Let's eat through there, on the coffee table," I directed, nodding towards the open living area onto which the rest of the loft opened. "We don't really have a dining room, let alone a proper table," I apologised. "Here, have a cushion."

"No, this is nice," assured Thom, setting his steaming plate of Sag Paneer down on the coffee table, then quickly lowering himself down to the floor and folding his legs underneath him. "Open plan. I'd like to have a house like this some day," he observed, craning his neck and looking around him, his eyes coming to rest on the large, tent-like construction with which I'd shielded the bed in a pitiful attempt to maintain some privacy. At least my personality had started to make more of a dent on the décor up here.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "I prefer proper houses, with rooms and doors and boundaries and private places you can run off to hide and lick your wounds." Thom turned back to me with an amused expression and a raised eyebrow. How could our conversation have taken such a turn for the banal? Where was the terrifying intellectualism and playful banter of our e-mail?

"I can't imagine you needing to do that much," he finally countered. "Unless…" He let his voice drop, not finishing the sentiment, glancing down towards the floor and wrinkling his brow. "Oh, and I brought some videos - in the car - some of the films I was telling you about?"

"Oh, good. I'd like to see them," I nodded, stuffing my face with rice to hide the fact that I had nothing to say. Bloody hell, what a mundane, stupid, boring thing to say. Why don't you just bore the man to death?

"More wine?" offered Thom politely. Had he finished the first glass already? I must really be horrifying him if he felt he had to get drunk to cope with me.

"Oh, cheers," I sighed as he hopped to his feet and jogged back across the loft to the kitchen. Leaning back, I watched him walk, his feet swinging in an odd, childish gait, feeling awkward and inarticulate. Returning with the bottle of wine, he folded his legs back under the table and splashed the wine into our glasses before gazing up at me with an utterly unmistakable plea.

_Bloody hell_ , I suddenly thought to myself as the realisation dawned. _He's not being bored and difficult - he's pathologically shy._

"There's no reason to be shy with me, Thom," I offered, trying to remember the free and easy conversation of our earlier e-mail. "I mean, you're not scared of me when we're on the internet."

"I'm not _scared_ of you," he protested, smiling a huge, broad grin of relief, as if finally convinced he had the right person after all. "It's just that, well... erm, I kinda forget that you're… you know, a girl." Suddenly he blushed a deep red, realising how that must have sounded. "Oh my god, I didn't meant that, like… Oh shit. Now I've offended you. Me and my big fucking mouth."

"I'm not offended." I shook my head reassuringly, wondering if I should be. "Was that meant as a compliment?"

"Well, yeah, that's how it was intended," he nodded enthusiastically, blowing on his curry to cool it before taking a bite. "I forgot how... how fucking beautiful you are." He flushed, embarrassed, and busied himself, pushing his food around his plate.

I made a face at him. "You know, it's actually kind of a relief sometimes, when people forget what I look like."

"What the fuck...? I bet people kiss your ass all the time because you're such a good-looking woman. I bet they just throw themselves at you."

"Yeah, but if it comes at the price of never being taken seriously? If people assume that you must be an idiot because you're blonde? If people assume that you're stupid, or you're shallow - or worse, that you're _clinical and studied_ , because your actual personality doesn't fit the image they've dreamed up to go with your looks?" I hadn't meant to take aim at him so directly - honestly, I'd been thinking of Damien's friends and their assumptions about me, but Thom's words still rankled.

Thom cringed, and hunched over, folding in upon himself as if he wished he could crawl under the table. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that." When I didn't respond, he raised his eye and peered at me. "It is intimidating, thought. I find you really intimidating, in the flesh. Though... well, I suppose you're a different kind of intimidating on the internet."

I stared at him. "You. Find _me_ intimidating?"

He frowned and shoveled more food into his mouth, concentrating very hard on chewing a lump of cauliflower. "Would you rather I treated you like a bloke? Is this why you said you were so into, you know, subverting gender roles? Do you think that men have it easier?"

"I'm certain they do."

"You don't think that men just have it harder in different ways?"

"Oh, it's so difficult, Thom, all that running the universe business, my heart bleeds for you."

"You don't think that men who buck the expectations of their... appearance are punished in their own way? How do you think it is for me? I'm not - I've never been - the world's most masculine man..."

I suddenly felt bad for snapping at him. Softening, I smiled at him. "You said were going to bring me old pictures of yourself, when you were all skanky ho boy and pretty."

"What do you mean, I'm not pretty now?" despite the slight whinge to his voice, he grinned up at me mischievously. "Shit, I didn't bring any with me. No, wait. I think I've still got an old student ID in my wallet, where you can see my bleached-out hair. If not, you can just laugh at me looking like a convict on my drivers license." Thom grinned broadly, raising himself on one hip and digging in his back pocket. 

"Pull over, let me see your artistic license," I quipped, taking the card from him. "Oh, this is great. Come on, let me see the rest of your wallet. Can I look?" I asked flirtatiously.

"What are you going to do? Steal my credit cards?" he asked somewhat dubiously, though he handed it over. "But only if I get to see yours…"

"Alright," I conceded, then leapt to my feet and trotted over to retrieve my handbag from the kitchen. Pulling out my wallet I tossed it to him. "Fair's fair. I feel like I'm back in high school - we can try on each others' glasses next."

"You don't wear glasses," observed Thom, then chuckled between mouthfuls of curry. "How many library cards do you have?" he whistled, flipping through the contents of my wallet lazily.

"I'm not sure. I have one from each borough of New York, and now I'm working on the London system," I replied proudly, leaving out the information that the reason I had so many was because I owed such vast sums of fines at each branch. "Har har, you really do look like a convict in your drivers' license!"

"Look who's talking! At least I don't have pink hair in mine!" he retorted, holding up the evidence, complete with the bright pink streaks I'd sported in about 1992.

"So this is the student ID? How old is this? 1989? Was this your skanky ho boy era?" I paused, squinting at the photo. "Wow, were you wearing eyeliner? That's a good look." His eyelashes really were absurdly long.

"OK, enough, give me that back now" warned Thom, but I darted out of his reach.

"No! I wanted to count how many hair-colours you've been through in your life."

"Not as many as you, apparently," he chuckled, laying the series of photo ID's out along the table, dating back through my college years, all the colours of the hair rainbow in succession, from jet goth black to peroxide white, through flame reds and daring Punky Colour disasters to the current natural golden honey blonde. "God, and I thought I was a packrat." Suddenly, he grinned. "Ooh, photos. This must be your mum."I nodded. "Who's the man next to her?"

"My brother," I sighed, feeling a flicker of sensation that could be regret. It had been years since we last spoke. He had discovered that I had spent some money he'd given me on an abortion, and we had parted amid much conflict and bitter recriminations. In a fit of guilt, I'd named my only son after him, but I'd never heard from him again.

"Your baby?" he asked, holding up the hospital photograph of Ian that was next in the requisite family series.

Ouch. I knew that my entire history was packed between the thin leather strips, but I had not been prepared for those precise moments to surface. Pushing his drivers license back behind his credit cards, I handed the entire wallet back to him with a pained smile. He paused, catching the sudden tension in the room, then slowly gathered up my cards one after another and inserted them back into my purse.

"I didn't tell you - this curry is amazing," he suddenly announced, picking up his fork again and shovelling it into his mouth.

"Thanks," I responded, beaming with pride, trying to pick up the lull in the conversation. For a few minutes, it had seemed so natural, so easy, like two kids comparing prizes in some bizarre contest, but I wasn't sure I'd ever relax around him completely. Thom fucking Eboracum was sitting eating curry in my living room. It was easy to forget who he was when he was simply a screen name on the other end of the internet, but as he sat opposite me, his eyes sliding over Damien's and my mismatched furniture with that penetrating stare, I couldn't help but remember flashes of videos, publicity shots, liner photos. Would this ever feel natural? He seemed so incongruous, so alien in the familiar surroundings.

"So, I gather you were going to be an architect when you grew up?" ventured Thom, filling up the gap in the conversation for a change.

I jumped, startled, wondering how he had known, then remembered the Cooper Union School of Architecture student ID in my wallet. "That was the plan, at least. What about you?"

"Advertising. English Lit with a minor in Fine Arts. I would have majored in it, except for the fact that I couldn't draw," he confessed, then with an evil gleam in his eye, added "Not that that stops people these days."

Ignoring the obvious slur against Damien, I shrugged. "I was lucky - I couldn't draw, but I was good at maths, so I got into the architecture department. I think my parents might have been happier with advertising. No money in architecture, unless you're Le Corbusier or Frank Lloyd Wright or someone. And I could never get my head around the zeitgeist enough to be successful as a hack."

"Well, the current zeitgeist in architecture is fucking horrible," commiserated Thom, helping himself to more chutney. "It's never quite recovered from jokey post-Modernism, and now nobody quite knows what to do with it without just retreating back to Brutalism."

"I fucking loathe Brutalism. Le Corbu and all that. He invented the public housing problem as we know it, you know," I started to rant, pouring myself yet another glass of wine.

"Did he?  I dunno; he's more Modernist, and that lot I do like." Thom finished his wine and held out the empty glass for more. "I know he had some grand plan to clear out the slums of France and put up tower blocks, but I didn't think they ever gave him the chance."

"But his followers did get the chance, in New York City - whole neighbourhoods have been fucking ravaged when they threw these things up."

"Well, I don't know, I mean, to play devil's advocate, they're a cheap way to mass-produce housing for people who wouldn't otherwise have it," Thom pointed out.

"No, they're not! They cleared out the slums - not because it was cheaper or space conserving, because you can fit the same amount of dwellings in a square mile of densely packed 5 story tenement houses as you can into 40 story towers separated by miles of barren concrete lawns, which was Le Corbu's original idea, remember - but because they _looked_ better from a distance."

"Probably cleaner and safer, though," theorised Thom. "I mean, those slums that they replaced were notorious for crime…"

"Not at all! The tower blocks worse - and do you know why? Because they destroyed the fundamental basic social unit of the inner city - which is the city block. You know, you've never lived in a big city, have you? Everyone comes out and socialises on the front steps of tenement houses, which creates a sense of community. To the outsider, it looks dangerous, because it's messier, but it's that sense of community that keeps the neighbourhood together on a basic level. Rip those out, and throw up these barren, sterile rabbit warrens without any real communal space - and you destroy the basic social unit of the community, which is why those things have become a nightmare of gangs and drugs."

Thom cocked his head to one side as if contemplating this. "Yeah, actually I read something about that somewhere. Lack of defensible space meant the people who lived there didn't feel like they had a personal stake in the shared areas. Actually, you might have a point."

I beamed, remembering that the very same argument had once scored me an A on an exam. "You can take the girl out of architecture school, but you can't take the architecture school out of the girl."

"And you were trying to convince me that you didn't have a political opinion in your head," teased Thom.

I glared at him. "It's not politics, it's sociology," I pointed out.

"Same thing."

"No it's not. Politics is about power, sociology is about people. I have no interest whatsoever in power," I snorted.

"Oh, I do," retorted Thom with a grin.

"Napoleon complex, eh?" I teased with a playful twinkle in my eye.

"So if you loathe Le Corbusier, who do you like, then?" Thom ventured, changing the subject away from the personal back to the safety of the abstract, leaning back and stretching, then gesturing towards his empty plate. "Do you mind if I help myself to some more?"

"Go ahead. Just make sure you leave some for Damien," I called after him as he headed for the kitchen.

"I heard my name... Oh, hullo," I heard Damien's voice echo from the entrance to the stairway. "It smells amazing in here. I hope you left me some!"

"Yeah, there's plenty," assured Thom, guiltily stuffing the last of the papadums into his mouth.

"I can microwave some more papadums if you want them," I offered.

"No worries," called back Damien.

"So which architects do you like, then?" Thom asked, picking up our previous conversation as he ignored Damien.

"Oh, deeply uncool stuff like Pugin and Butterfield. Resolutely Victorian architects," I explained. "Especially Butterfield. He was one of the few who tried to maintain what he called a sense of honesty, with regards to the function of the house and the building materials…"

"Sort of like an early precursor of Gropius!" Thom nodded enthusiastically. I couldn't believe he was actually following this. Damien didn't even try to appreciate my taste in art, dismissing it as...

"Sentimental claptrap, all that High Victorian shit!" asserted Damien with an impish gleam in his eye. "Watch out, Eboracum - she'll be dragging out her books on the Pre-bloody-Raphaelites before you know it."

It was a familiar argument, but a playful one. "I _like_ the Pre-Raphaelites," I tossed back.

"She likes all that sentimental Bourgeois crap," sighed Damien, plopping himself down at the table between us with a long-suffering glance at Thom. It was a familiar game we often played with company. Em and Alex loved the Pre-Raphaelites, and would defend them, Kate and Jarvis loathed them as clichéd and middle class, and would take Damien's side and we'd have a fantastic squabble over absolutely nothing at all, flipping back clever commentary on the history of art until Damien and I came to a truce. "Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts. Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele - can you believe it? German fucking Expressionism in _my_ house." He shook his head sadly, waiting to see which side Thom came in on.

"Klimt and Schiele were The Vienna Secession not German expressionism," I contradicted with the patient air of a scolding mother. Thom looked back and forth between us as if vaguely frightened, unsure of what to say. "Didn't you learn anything at Goldsmiths?"

"It's still crap," snorted Damien, grinning in challenge.

"Crap? Crap?" I demanded, grandstanding towards Thom. "Do you want to see crap? I'll show you crap." Skipping over towards the stereo, I started to pull records out of his bookshelf. "Ooh, look, what is this? Would this happen to be Journey? No, I believe it is _Asia_. Even worse!"

Damien groaned and pulled a face, turning away in shame. "Christ, I've had that since 1982. Leave me alone!"

"And this!" I crowed in triumph. "Would this happen to be Blue Öyster Cult? On CD, no less, so you can't tell me you've had this since you were in school!"

"Ohhh…" whined Damien, playing along with the joke, and turning to Thom with pleading eyes.

"Actually, I rather like some Blue Öyster Cult," offered Thom warily, looking back and forth between Damien and I. "Or, at least, _Don't Fear The Reaper_. Classic tune, that."

For a moment, there was silence between the three of us, then Damien burst into cackles of laughter. Thom had passed the test, he would be Damien's friend from now on. Rolling my eyes, I dropped the CD back into the piles of albums and headed back to the table, bending over to rub Damien's shoulder and kiss the top of his head, conceding defeat.

"Though, um…" Thom seemed suddenly ill at ease, despite the truce between Damien and I. "Uh…" He swallowed nervously, unable to articulate the words forming on his tongue as he stared warily at Damien.

"Are you done?" I ventured, rescuing the conversation before either Damien could embarrass me or himself further. "Can I possibly tempt you with some mango ice cream?" I offered.

"Mango ice cream?" echoed Damien, his eyes lighting up.

"Eat yer meat!" I directed, in a terrible imitation of a Scots accent. "How can yer have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?" Damien collapsed in giggles, scoffing his food as fast as he could.

"This is not meat!" insisted Damien, holding up a lump of paneer and eyeing it suspiciously. "I'll get you some meat from downstairs!"

"Um, no… thanks…" stuttered Thom, looking back and forth between us as if he thought we were both completely mad.

"Suit yourself," I shrugged, climbing to my feet again, and clearing the plates from around Damien. Balancing the dishes carefully in my arms, I hummed to myself as I padded back towards the kitchen, slightly buzzed, but not yet drunk, depositing the dishes in the empty sink with a satisfying clatter, squeezing out a few drops of detergent, then turning on the taps. The running water must have masked any approaching footsteps, but suddenly I felt a tentative hand on my hip. "Dame, what do you want?" I asked, almost reflexively, then turned to confront the deep blue eyes of Thom, his face far too close for comfort. "Thom?"

He lifted his hand from my body as if it had been burned and stepped back about a foot. "That, um, mango ice cream, sounds, um…" He stumbled over his own words, tripping over his own feet as he stumbled backwards. "Never mind."

I stared at him dumbly, waiting for some other statement to penetrate my wine-befuddled brain, then gave up and shrugged, slipping past him to head out through the other exit of the kitchen, passing through the empty area I had claimed as storage space for my musical equipment.

Thom was half a step behind me, but he was suddenly distracted, kneeling down beside a guitar stand bearing the most recent of my decadent rock star purchases, a mint green Gretsch identical to the one Brian Jones had played on early Stones songs. I had found at a bargain price somewhere in the Midlands on our last tour, and resolved to learn how to play it. "Oh my," stuttered Thom, entranced by it.

"Go ahead - you can play it, if you like. I'm useless at the guitar. Just can't figure out what to do with those extra two strings," I offered.

With the grin of a child at Christmas, Thom picked up the guitar and balanced it on his knee, picking out chords hesitantly, dwarfed by its immense body. "It doesn't matter what you play," he observed. "This guitar is so beautiful, everything sounds beautiful on it."

"No, everything _you_ play sounds beautiful on it," I corrected with a starstruck little grin.

"Don't sell yourself short," Thom shrugged, passing the guitar back to me. "Go on, play me something."

"I thought you hated my band," I blushed.

He shook his head, grinning bashfully. "No… Why would you think that?"

"Oh, you only trashed us in the NME, remember? Same interview as _clinical and studied_?" I accused, barely believing how bold the wine was making me.

"Well, I didn't particularly like the first album," he confessed. "But then I heard… or rather, should I say, Jonny practically tied me down and forced me to listen to the latest one, and I have to say I really liked it. It's quite different from what I was expecting."

I blushed, refusing to believe what I was hearing. Although I had grown used to the mindless platitudes mumbled by ingratiating journalists, and the breathless hyperbole of fanatical fans, this was something different; the genuine appreciation of someone whom I considered my superior in every way. "I just wish you could convince the press of that. They've been a little… harsh."

"Oh, don't listen to the press, Kate," he laughed, moving a little closer to me. "They just get a bit upset when someone when one of us puny, forgettable artists goes so far as to prove how insignificant their opinions truly are. They like to think that they have some sort of power over our careers - that if they can dismiss us as one-hit wonders, then the simple fact of their pronouncing it makes it true. God forbid that we should actually do something that they couldn't foresee. It makes them look as impotent as they truly are." Smiling smugly, he closed his eyes and cocked his head forward, as if listening. "What's that you're playing?"

I froze, barely realising that I'd been playing. Without realising what I'd been doing, I'd started to finger chords, picking lazily at the strings in sequence. I didn't really have the faintest clue how to play, picking out fractured chord progressions by ear, moving open chords up and down the neck wherever I found harmonics, by instinct, rather than by intellect. Almost by habit, I had found myself picking out a familiar tune, the same haunting melody that had come to me the first time I picked up the guitar. "Um, nothing really," I stuttered awkwardly, wishing I had never left the guitar out in the first place.

Thom was smiling, his eyes closed, but his lips parted, rocking back and forth in time with the beat, humming a melody that only he could hear over the sparse chords I was strumming. Soon, the sound overspilled his closed lips, a haunting melody seeping out into the still air of the loft, his sexless, pure, choirboy voice weaving in and out of the guitar. Suddenly embarrassed, I stopped, letting the sound slip away into the night air, but Thom opened his eyes, his expression placidly content.

"Why did you stop? Keep playing that, I nearly had it…"

Barely daring to breathe, I started to cycle through the chord progression again, adding the vague vocal harmony that had started to form in my head, shivering at how well it complimented what he was singing. His voice floated, wavered, soared through the air; anything I could add seemed only a pale imitation, but I did my best to keep up, echoing him faintly, occasionally adding faint embellishments. He was smiling now, the pure, infant joy of creation dusted across his lips, though his eyes were open, those huge blue pools gazing back at me as his uncontrollable voice spilled monosyllabic nonsensical rapture into the air around us.

I was almost afraid to stop playing, but the song was winding to a close, Thom's voice growing softer, falling below the volume of the strings, then failing entirely, his eyes closing again, his head nodding back and forth, then falling still. For a moment, I held my breath, listening for the last reverberating echoes of sound, then exhaled deeply, letting go of the strings and grinning at Thom. This was like the first time I'd ever played one of my songs for the Charms, shivering at how well Beth's voice had blended with my own, only instead of the familiar face of Beth, I saw Thom grinning back at me.

"You know that was fucking beautiful," observed Damien's voice, and I jumped, turning to see him standing behind us, staring at us with an odd mixture of respect and longing.

"We should do something with it," ventured Thom, but then he let the sentiment drop.

"No…" I shook my head, almost embarrassed at the thought.

"Kate!" Damien's voice behind me pulled me back to reality. "For once, listen to me and not your insecurities. Record that."

"There's a 4-track around here somewhere," I offered stupidly.

"Yeah, I see it," responded Thom quickly, pulling it out from a nest of wires and microphone cables. "Come on, quick, let's get it down while it's still fresh in our heads." The dinner forgotten, the two of fussed over the 4-track, locating a blank tape, setting up headphones and plugging in. In about five minutes, we had a passable approximation of the melody and chords on tape, and Thom was starting to spin the syllables into words and phrases.

"Oh, I can hear the bassline," I murmured to myself, picking out a counter-melody on the lowest four strings.

"Yeah, that's perfect," agreed Thom. "Go on, put your vocal harmony down next."

"We're running out of tracks," I sighed. "We could start to ping-pong them, but I don't want to lose the sound quality."

"We could record it at our studio," piped up Thom. "That's 24 tracks - I'm sure that's plenty. Yeah, I'll work on lyrics, you write a bassline. I've got a drum machine up there, so we can sketch out some sort of a beat…" Already, the plans were ticking inside his head. "It's sitting empty right now, cause everyone's off on holiday, I'm sure they wouldn't mind if we used it."

"Um," I stuttered, barely believing what I was hearing. "I don't know…" It wasn't enough that my fucking idol was sitting in my living room eating my curry, but now he wanted to record some cast-off ditty that the Charms had rejected as too maudlin. "I mean, we're off on tour again in two weeks…"

"So we'll do it next week," shrugged Thom. "Is that good for you? I've got fuck all else to do at the moment."

"I don't know," I hedged, casting a pleading glance back at Damien. "We have to go to an opening next weekend, and…"

"How's Thursday, then?"

"Thursday? I never could quite get the hang of Thursdays…"

Thom laughed at the reference and nodded. "It's a date, then. Got any others?"

"Um, no." Not that I was going to play him, at least.

"Hand the guitar over, then."

We sat up until the small hours of the morning, trading the guitar back and forth, running through every song that both of us knew, finishing the jug of wine and contemplating starting on the second until Thom reminded me that he had to drive home. With the guitar between us, it seemed easier to communicate, without worrying about awkwardness or shyness, until I almost didn't want him to leave, blushing at the tentative hug and the kiss on the cheek he left me with.

Spinning around dizzily, I hugged myself tightly as I skipped to the bed, but Damien was already under the covers, a pillow pulled over his head to block out the music as he slept off his supper. "Are you awake?" I called out softly, desperately wanting someone to gush to about how excited and elated I was.

The pillow shifted slightly. "That depends. Are you ever so slightly drunk and rather randy and looking for somewhere to work out your unresolved sexual tensions?"

I was in too good a mood to be infuriated by him. And, now that he mentioned it, actually I was actually more than slightly aroused, not to mention quite bold from the wine. "As a matter of fact..." Picking up the edge of the duvet, I slipped underneath, locating his legs in the dark and nipping him playfully. 

Damien shrieked with surprise, then started to writhe with pleasure as I climbed up his body, pinning him down and straddling him. "Oh. Is it going to be like this?"

"Shut up and lie back," I commanded, seizing his hands and pinning him to the mattress forcefully.

He grinned from ear to ear as he rolled his eyes back in his head. "Whatever it is you've been up to, I don't care. I approve whole-heartedly... oooh, do that again, that felt nice..."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate Gordon has a date to record a solo track with Thom Eboracum out at Radioshack's Oxfordshire studio. Wait, no. It is NOT a date. She is a professional musician, offered the chance to work with someone she truly admires on an artistic level, and there is no fancying at all involved. None. At all. On either side. Not a sausage. This is not a crush, repeat, this is NOT a crush. This is not a... oh fuck, has he just got his shirt off?

I did not sleep a wink Wednesday night, and was so nervous I could barely eat Thursday morning, staring apprehensively at the croissants Damien had had sent up from the restaurant downstairs, deciding instead to simply swig down a cup of coffee and head for the shower. Standing in the bedroom, my hair wrapped in a towel, I stared at the clothes that were slowly taking over Damien's closet. I picked up a sexy little black minidress for a moment, then noticed Damien's raised eyebrow and thrust it back onto the rack. I did _not_ have a crush on Thom, I had no one to impress. What would I wear to a normal session with the Charms? Well worn, comfortable jeans and my favourite tank-top emblazoned with the Vox logo for good luck. With a self-satisfied nod that I was taking all of this with the proper level of seriousness, I twisted my still-damp hair into a loose bun and pinned it to the top of my head.

There, let Damien even try to think I'm dressing to impress, I thought to myself, then realised that Damien hadn't even said a word.

"See you later this evening," I told him, kissing him on the top of the head as I passed him on the way out, a guitar case in each hand. "I have no idea how long we're going to be - don't wait up."

"Good luck!" responded Damien enthusiastically, raising his face for another kiss. "Oh wait a minute - I have a message… Where is it?" I froze, terrified that Thom had called and cancelled at the last minute. "Em Evesham called while you were in the shower, saying she had the contact sheets from Glastonbury, if you want to pick out some for the tour programme… And make sure you get a copy of that NME cover shot from her! I want to get it framed! She said she'd print an enlargement for me," he added with a guilty smile.

"Oh shit," I swore, glancing at my watch. "I'm going to be late if I stop on the way over to Thom's…"

"She said no worries, she'll be at the studio until 11pm tonight. Stop by any time, just have the security guard call up when you get there. Have fun!"

Due to some amazing traffic luck on the Westway, I actually managed to make pretty good time heading out towards Oxford, enjoying the feeling of the wind on my face as I left the city behind and drove further out into the country. Was this where Thom lived? Lucky bastard. It was beautiful out here, trees, fields, bucolic cows and… power stations? God, you just couldn't avoid civilisation, even out here, could you? Turning down a poorly paved lane through an apple orchard, I winced at the damage this would do Damien's suspension, making my way slowly towards what looked like a converted barn made of corrugated iron. Bloody hell, how could anyone live in a place like this, especially someone who argued so convincingly about architecture? Well, maybe he was a fan of Le Corbusier after all. Parking the car out behind the structure, I threw one guitar over my shoulder and carried the other in my hand, picking my way down a weedy path towards the main door.

No doorbell? Shit. Setting the guitar case down on the ground next to me, I pushed my sunglasses up to the top of my head and started to bang on the make-shift door, alarmed at the way the entire shack seemed to resonate with the noise. _Warning: Low Oxygen._ What the hell was that about? Soon, the door swung inwards and Thom's grinning face appeared in the gap.

"Come in… sorry about the mess, I've been trying to pick up a bit, but musicians are not exactly known for their tidiness," he apologised, with his now-familiar crooked grin.

"It's alright," I chirped, following him into the near-darkness, realising with a shock that this was their studio, not his home. Well, I supposed it was just as well he didn't live in such a dump, but I had to admit I was a little disappointed, as I had been looking forward to seeing where he actually lived.

"Great shirt," he observed, catching sight of the Vox logo through my open jacket, pointing at it with his index finger, then hurriedly withdrawing it with a slight blush as he realised he had just thrust his hand towards my breasts.

"It's my good luck recording charm," I explained with a shrug. If engineers were going to insist on staring at my breasts, they might as well be greeted with something business like adorning my cleavage, but I wasn't about to inform Thom of that fact.

"I stopped and got fresh recording tape," he informed me, opening a box and breathing deeply. "My band mates all think I'm mad, but I love the smell of new reel to reel tape. Film, too. It's that creative chemical smell."

"It is nice," I agreed, bending over to breath deeply, suddenly very aware of how close we were standing in the cramped control room, our heads almost touching as we bent over the huge reel to reel tape recorder.

"I can't get the remote trigger to work in the isolation booth, so we're going to have to go one at a time and engineer each other from in here."

"No worries, this is very similar to our set-up at home, except I prefer your analogue tape to our digital. We'll put the guitar down first, shall we? Do you have something we can use for a click track?"

"Oh, yeah," he assured me. "I have the drum machine plugged into the console here." Spinning around in his wheely producer's chair, he gestured towards the mixing board, indicating an old 808 I'd barely noticed, surrounded by all the other recording equipment.

"Is that an 808?" I gushed. "Oh man, I want one of these. Maddie has a 505, but it doesn't have anything like the kick drum."

"The 505 has the best damn handclap of anything in the Roland range."

"Still nothing can touch an 808. Oh man, the backbone of the 80's, truly it was. Emma keeps trying to steal one from the Beastie Boys, but I think they're wise to us and hide it when she comes over."

"I'll keep that in mind," Thom chuckled, leaning over and flicking a few switches, then blowing on a mic to test it. The awkwardness and clumsiness that plagued him seemed to evaporate as soon as he set foot in the studio, suddenly as sure and self-possessed as an old pro. "Are you going to go direct, or do you want to use an amp?"

"Is that an AC-30 reissue I see in there?" I wondered out loud.

"It's not a reissue," boasted Thom. "You can use it, but be careful - it's Jonny's, and if you break it, he'll hurt you."

"I'll be very careful," I reassured him, tramping into the sound booth and setting my guitar down on the floor, trying very hard not to gawk at all the equipment. My god, someone pinch me. I am sitting in Radioshack's recording studio, about to plug into Jonny Greensleaves' amplifier. Though my first impulse was to do a little dance of joy around the studio and squeal like the little fangirl I still was deep in my heart, I controlled myself, trying to act as professionally as possible, warming up the tubes as I tuned my guitar.

Suddenly, I noticed Thom tapping on the glass that separated us, pointing to something on the floor next to me. Headphones. Of course. _You have actually been in a studio before, Kate, could you please try to act like it?_ I reminded myself. Picking them up, I slipped them over my ears, feeling ridiculously like a little girl that had wandered into a Rockumentary by mistake.

"Can you hear me?" boomed Thom's voice in my ears. I nodded and gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. "Can you get the Neumans from over in the corner - I want to use them to record acoustic room ambience to mix in with the amplified guitar." I complied, feeling awfully proud that I knew what the hell he was talking about. A year ago, I would have whimpered and squealed for an engineer, but after building a home studio in the basement of our tenement house, I suddenly felt terribly sophisticated and accomplished.

"Yeah, it'll sound much warmer this way," I noted into the microphones as I plugged them into the snake. "If you want to be really anal, you can use another mic right up close on the guitar to get fret noise and harmonics."

Thom laughed in the headphones. "I'm not feeling that ambitious _yet_. Are you ready to give me a line level?"

"Sure. Just a minute, let me get comfortable…"

Surprisingly enough, I soon felt incredibly comfortable with Thom in the studio. At first I had been a bit intimidated, and jumped every time I heard his voice in the cans, but soon I realised that I knew nearly as much, perhaps even more than he did about the recording process. The two us worked together well, complimenting one another perfectly musically and technically, despite a worrying habit of consistently cracking one another up when we were trying to cut vocal takes. I would be standing in the middle of the booth, one headphone on and one off, trying to concentrate on nailing a certain harmony, and I would just look over at the mixing board and see Thom sitting with his arms raised above his head, his eyes rolled back, a blissful expression dusted across his lips as he subconsciously moved his hands in time with the music, dancing like a fucking hippie, and I would suddenly lose it laughing.

He had a sense of humour about it at least, stopping the tape and leaning forward into the control mic with one eyebrow arched, asking patiently "Shall we do that again, Kate?" I had expected him to be such a perfectionist control freak, but he seemed to be endlessly patient, though I soon discovered he did not have the same self-control when it came to his own performance. When it was his turn in the isolation booth, I would find myself trying to crack him up time and time again to diffuse the tension.

As the afternoon wore on, it got hotter and hotter in the studio, the sun turning the corrugated iron into a sweatbox, causing me to rip off my jacket, fanning myself with the take sheet. Tiny drops of sweat were beading up on Thom's forehead, and I knew that the iso booth had to be about ten degrees hotter than the control room. "Do you mind?" he finally asked, grabbing his T-shirt by the hem and pulling it away from his perspiring stomach, shaking it lightly to fan himself.

"Why would I mind?" I laughed.

"We're not used to having girls in here," he giggled, turning around demurely before pulling his shirt over his head, wiping his face with it and tossing it back into a corner behind the drum kit. "5 sweaty men in a studio makes quite a difference."

"I'd hate to have to smell that," I giggled, rewinding the tape, my eyes suddenly drawn to the bony lily-white expanse of his chest as he turned back to face me. _This is not a crush, this is not a crush, this is_ _…_ _oh god, this is a crush,_ I realised, mentally tracing the tiny trail of hair down across his stomach, around his belly button and down into the waistband of his baggy trousers. It had been so long since I'd actually been in a band with a boy that I had forgotten the strange, intensely sexual chemistry that could develop during the process of songwriting.

"You ready for one more take?" he sighed, rubbing his hands over his hair, making it stand up at even more rakish angles.

"Um, oh, yeah," I stuttered, dragging my attention back to the mixing board, as I found the right place on the tape and hit record. "Rolling…"

Closing his eyes, Thom extended his arms, brought them around in a circle until they were clasped over his head, took a deep breath and arched his back, throwing the entire weight of his tiny body behind the sound that escaped his lips, a low hum sliding up the scale. As the sound built to a crescendo, I could see the muscles in his throat tense and relax, watching the bones of his ribcage expand as he took another breath. His eyes closed, lost in the music, his voice seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside him, as if he was channelling instead of singing. Rolling his shoulders back and forth, he writhed slightly, standing on tiptoes to bring himself closer to the microphone, a sinewy, snakelike motion, unintentionally yet undeniably sexy. Lowering his arms across his belly, he snaked his hands around his own waist, hugging himself close, pushing his voice for the final harmony.

I could hardly believe the difference. When he opened his mouth to sing, this tiny, awkward, painfully shy little boy of a man seemed transformed into the most charismatic, self-possessed, powerful performer I'd ever witnessed. Grinning triumphantly, he finished the song, waited until I'd hit stop, then peeled off the headphones and stamped through into the control booth, flopping down on the futon behind the board.

"I think I nailed it," he announced, obviously pleased with himself.

"I don't think you nailed it, I _know_ you nailed it," I agreed, rewinding the tape them hitting play.

"I don't know," he shrugged, the insecurity creeping back into his voice for a moment. "Sometimes you hear the playback, and it sounds nothing like you imagined it. But 9 times out of 10, when I feel like _that_ , it's on."

"Feel like what?" I probed, spinning around in the producer's chair to face him.

Thom grinned, closing his eyes and rubbing them. "Sexy. Powerful. Beautiful." I merely smirked back at him, absolutely agreeing with him, though afraid to tell him so. "Hey, you have a tattoo," he suddenly noticed, reaching out one hand and trailing a finger along my upper arm, sending at tiny shiver of electricity down my spine. "I didn't know you had one."

"Of course I do," I laughed. "Designed it myself. So even when I'm naked, I'm still wearing paisley."

"Oh?" Thom raised an eyebrow suggestively, following the blue and green tail of the paisley with his fingertip. "I think tattoos are terribly erotic."

"Do you have any?" I ventured, my eyes sliding across the slight white field of his chest and shoulders.

He shook his head petulantly, like a puppy. "Well, no, not on me they're not." I wanted to freeze the moment forever, the sexual tension between us, the feel of his fingertips on my skin, the haunting music drifting through the air. "It's good. This is the one," he finally observed, breaking the mood.

"I think I'd have to kill you if you did another take," I teased.

"And now the really fun part," sighed Thom, slumping over, his cheek against the futon cover.

"Mixing," I groaned, standing up to stop the tape, then flopping down onto the futon beside him. I expected him to move, to make room for me, but he remained where he was, his face inches from mine, studying me with those transparent blue eyes. "God, what time is it?"

Thom glanced down at his watch. "Just after nine."

" _Nine?_ In the evening?" I gasped. Thom nodded, nonplussed. "There is no way we've been here for 10 hours."

"Yes we have."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I swore, grabbing his wrist and staring at the time to make sure he was not lying. The skin of his arm was surprisingly soft, and curiously hairless, like that of a little boy. "Shit, I have to go. I have to meet Em at her studio before 11 to go over some contact sheets."

"Oh." Thom sounded genuinely disappointed, though he did not try to retrieve his wrist from my grasp, instead taking my hand in his, clasping it and swinging it back and forth like a petulant child. "So when are we going to mix this thing, then?"

"I don't know," I moaned, thinking about how tight my schedule was until we left on tour again. "Friday we have plans, Saturday we have to go to Damien's best friend from art school's opening, how about Sunday?"

"Sunday, the girlfriend's parents are expecting us for familial obligations," he sighed in an annoyed tone. "Monday?"

"Shoot, it's going to have to be Monday, because my flight is Tuesday. Though early, because I think Damien and Alex are planning some sort of going away dinner at the Ivy."

"Sounds ghastly," muttered Thom, then quickly added. "I mean, the early part. Not the... Well." His voice trailed away diplomatically and he ventured another smile.

"I have to go," I reminded him, pulling away from him and starting to stand up. "Can I leave my gear here until then?"

"Sure. No problem. Right, yeah, see you Monday then," he shrugged, following me to the door. "Hey!" I turned around, expecting him to say something further, but instead he wrapped his arms around me, pressing me close against his bare skin, laying his tufty head against the hollow of my neck, his breath moist against my collarbone. Bloody hell, he was short, but his arms fit so naturally around my waist I barely noticed. He gave damn good hugs, folding himself into the embrace. For a long moment, I contemplated staying, blowing off Em and lying, wrapped in that embrace forever, but he broke away abruptly, pulling away with a cryptic grin. "See you Monday. Bright and early."

It took every ounce of my self control to walk out the door and back along the path to the car. _Come on, Kate,_ I kept telling myself _, don't act like this, you're behaving like a schoolgirl with a crush, not like an artist who's just had a mutual admiration session with a long-admired and respected hero. Don't ruin this by making is sexual, it isn't sexual. It isn't_ _…_ The image of Thom standing in the studio, possessed by that otherworldly surge of creativity forced itself across my mind. _It's a crush, it's a crush, it's nothing, get control over yourself._ Slamming my foot onto the accelerator, I roared back up the Westway at 90 mph, trying to make up the time I'd lost, and praying that no cops were in the vicinity. Thank god for Damien and his vanity sportscar _. Oh fuck, Damien. What would he have to say about it,_ I wondered guiltily _. No, nothing happened,_ I reminded myself, trying to get a grip on my wandering thoughts, forcing myself to concentrate on my driving.

 

I roared into London and managed to park in the alley behind Em's studio just before 10:30, smoothing my hair down and looking around the back of the car for my jacket, as the temperature had dropped significantly since the sun had climbed below the horizon. Dammit, it was back at Thom's studio. Flushed from the chill, I ran the half a block to the building and dashed up to the security guard.

"Kate Gordon, for Em Evesham," I told him hurriedly, catching my breath.

"Just a moment." Picking up the in-house phone, he dialled a number, then cleared his throat. "Ms. Evesham? A Ms. Gordon to see you? Very good, miss." Placing the phone down, he gestured toward the elevator bank. "Go right up, she's expecting you."

Punching the elevator button impatiently, I bumbled into it and rode up to the second floor, humming distractedly, then taking off down the hallway as soon as the door opened. "Em?" I called softly, knocking on the door.

"Come in," she called back from inside.

"I don't have to, um, worry about outside lights and…" I stuttered. I didn't think I'd ever actually been inside Em's studio before, and I wasn't sure what to expect from a photographer. Red light bulbs and double doors?

"Oh good lord, no," laughed Em, looking up from the light table where she was slicing negatives with a practised eye. "This is my office, the darkroom proper is through there."

"Oh," I responded, feeling a bit stupid.

"I'll be with you in a minute, I just have to trim this… Fuck!" she muttered, swearing at her exacto knife.

"Take your time," I assured her, relieved that she was not ready yet, as it made me feel less guilty about being so late. Glancing around, I noticed a couple of thick, professional photo books lying on the table next to the couch, so I flopped down next to them. "Do you mind if I look through your portfolio?"

"Go ahead, that's what they're there for. Help yourself to a soda if you like, they're in the fridge."

"Cheers," I responded, taking a coke and settling back in the couch with the big photo book. Ah, the infamous million dollar Mirage shot, first page in the book. Ouch, that looked painful; you could practically see the spit flying from the mouth of the younger Gallivant Brother, in clinical precise black and white. A gorgeous colour shot of Slur on stage, as if to make up for having her boyfriend's rival in the place of honour. Damon, smug and grandiose, Graham terrified, Dave with a look of intense concentration and Alex… Alex standing leaning against his amplifier, smoking a cigarette with that studiedly bored expression. Perfect. Next was the now-familiar Glastonbury shot, me squinting at the camera with Ian clinging to my neck, reaching for the flowers in my hair, a bass thrown back casually over one shoulder, and the clouds parting to let through a ray of sunshine for the first time all weekend. It was a gorgeous photograph, I did have to admit that, still not losing its impact despite the number of covers and colour supplements it had been plastered across. "Oh that reminds me. Damien wants one of these for himself - he said to ask you for one?"

"I know," Em nodded. "He called me and asked me for one a few hours ago, thinking you'd forget."

"I didn't forget!" I protested, almost annoyed at my partner's lack of faith in me.

Em grinned, looking up at me from under her hair, looking almost uncannily like Alex in that moment. "Would you have remembered if you hadn't seen it there?"

"Touché." Flipping the page, I browsed through Gulp, more Slur, the first famous AbSynth photos, more Mirage, Übergrass, Plastique, Theologized; practically a who's who of contemporary British music. Ooh, perhaps she had some of Radioshack… I turned the page to be rewarded with a full colour photo of Thom, his head tilted to one side, his lips slightly parted, one eye wide, one arm wrapped around his waist in the gesture I'd grown to love so well, the other propped under his chin, in a modern day version of Rodin's _Thinker_. "Oh, this is a nice one," I whistled appreciatively.

Em glanced over to see what I was admiring. "Really? I wasn't really happy with any of them, but then again, he's just an odd-looking little fellow, really."

"Odd-looking?" I protested. "Oh, Em, these are lovely."

Cocking an eyebrow in disbelief, Em tucked her negatives into a plastic sheath and wandered over to glance over my shoulder. "That one's a good one. Fantastic bone structure, he has," she observed over a photo of Jonny Greensleaves absorbed in the strings of his stratocaster. I turned the page to see a photo of a drunken-looking Thom clutching a bottle of wine in one hand and pulling up his shirt to display his pale white tummy to the audience. "Oh, that's just silly. I don't even know why that one's in there. It's just funny to see him on stage, because I've never seen anyone project such self confidence."

"It's a lovely photo!" I insisted doggedly, staring at the curves of his ribcage with more than professional interest. "God, his stomach…" I sighed. "And his skin is so soft…"

"And how do you know what Thom Eboracum's skin feels like?" demanded Em playfully, her eyebrows shooting up her forehead in disbelief.

"I, um, I…" Pushing the memory of the sensation of his sweaty skin against mine out of my mind, I grinned back at her as innocently as could, though the flush on my face must have given me away.

"I'm not asking! I don't want to know!" Em sputtered, placing her hands over her ears.

"So do you have those contact sheets?" I asked, changing the subject quickly.

"Yeah, you can take these with you if you like. Let me know tomorrow which ones you want me to send to your PR. Oh, and the Glasto picture is in the back - tell Damien he's welcome."

"Mmm," I nodded, though my mind was as far as it could be away from tour programs and Glastonbury stage shots, tracing the sparse hair down Thom's stomach towards the waistband of his baggy pants.

"Kate!" Em's voice dragged me back to reality.

"What?"

"Never mind," she sighed, shaking her head.

"Can I take this one with me?" I begged, figuring it was at least worth a shot to ask, if Em wasn't fond of the picture of Thom's tummy.

"No!" Her voice was almost indignant.

"Please?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Can you print me up a spare copy?"

"Get out of here!" snorted Em playfully, batting me in the head with the envelope containing the contact sheets. "It's 11, I have to meet Alex soon. Come on, I'll walk down with you."


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an... eventful art opening where Kate gets drunk, makes a fool of herself with a red-headed boy, and accidentally assaults the most powerful art collector in London, Damien nonetheless has a surprise for her.

"Kate!" Sarah waved warmly as I padded into the party a few steps behind Damien, feeling somewhat awkward and out of place as he bellowed his greetings at the few people whose company he approved of. "I'm so glad you made it," she gushed, taking me by the arm and leading me over towards the makeshift bar. "Can I get you a drink?"

Trying to gauge the reasons for her friendliness, I nodded, non-committaly trying to extract my arm from her grasp without seemed too obviously rude. "Gin and tonic, please."

"Damien never comes to private showings," she whispered in a conspiratorial tone, digging around on the table of nearly demolished food for a clean plastic glass. "This _must_ be your doing."

I relaxed slightly and allowed myself a smile as she handed me a paper plate and gestured towards the assorted blocks of cheese and piles of chopped vegetables spread over the table. "As if anyone could tell Damien what to do or where to go."

Sarah cocked on eyebrow at me. "You need to have more faith in yourself and your influence on that man."

"Come again?" I protested innocently. Six months into the relationship, I still felt as if I had no control whatsoever over him. As a woman accustomed to wrapping men around her little finger with even the hint of a temper tantrum and used to getting her way at every step, I found him challenging and frustrating, but, I had to admit, at least I wasn't bored.

Smiling an unspoken _yes dear whatever you say_ , Sarah handed me a drink and pulled me off in the opposite direction from Damien. For a moment, I flinched and cast a desperate glance backwards at the gaggle of men standing around him, then gave up and let myself be drawn off into another part of the labyrinthine East London gallery. Private showings weren't about art at all, it seemed, but about meeting and mixing with the right sort of people.

"After all, this is what I came here for," I reminded myself under my breath. To rub shoulders with Damien's friends and at least try to integrate myself into his social circle.

Sarah noticed, and turned around, squeezing my arm reassuringly. "Don't let them scare you. They're just snobs, after all. Drop a hint that you are looking to start a collection and they will suddenly become the most unctuous gang of toadies you ever met."

I giggled into my gin and started to relax. "Well, at least they have something to be snobbish over, rather than the rock louts I usually am forced to interact with during what passes for a social life on tour," I observed snidely, remembering the post-gig shouting matches between Beth and Emma, and the unctuous promoters who had tried to assuage them with offers of illicit chemicals or questionable sexual practices.

"You'd be surprised," sighed Sarah, rolling her eyes as we squeezed down a tiny hallway, past a pair of obviously intoxicated louts. "Pardon me, Jake, that's the hall closet, not the loo. Could you try not to piss on the rug? Thank you..."

"And I was worried about fitting in with Damien's friends," I quipped, trying to cover the truth of my nervousness behind the jokes.

Although I'd expected these sorts of people to go for the jugular after any display of vulnerability, Sarah actually warmed to me, patting me on the hand. "Look at him," she directed, with a toss of her head back to the room from which we'd come. "He always complains about how much he loathes these sorts of things, but five minutes after he arrives, he's having the time of his life. He's just such a little charmer, everyone loves him. And then he claims he hates it. How did you manage to talk him into coming?"

I thought for a moment, gazing back at Damien, surrounded by a gang of friends, deep in some transitory drunken conversation. "I didn't talk him into it, though," I mused. "We were just chatting and..." I paused to think for a moment before deciding that I could trust Sarah, then ploughed on. "I told him that I needed to at least try to mix with his friends. I know they all consider me some sort of punk rock Barbie doll that he's taken up with, and, well, though I don't care what the fucking press has to say about me, I think I do need to at least attempt to make some sort of positive impression on the people that actually matter to him."

Sarah smiled as if that was the most adorable thing she'd ever heard. "That's very brave," she teased affectionately. "But you shouldn't be so scared of this lot. Come on, then. I'll tell you which of these people actually matter to him, then. Because Damien never will - he would never dare tell someone that _anyone_ actually mattered to him." Beaming encouragingly, she introduced me to one after another of the endless indistinguishable bohemians. "This is Kate Gordon. Kate, this is Adrian..." or Lucian. Or Julian or something like that. None of them had normal names - they all sounded like minor characters out of 1920's costume dramas, like they should be recovering from shell shock in some Parisian café on the Left Bank. But much to my relief, the introduction stopped there for the most part. Kate Gordon. Just Kate Gordon, not Kate from the Charms, Kate the pop star, or even Damien Hearse's New Bird, which was what I'd been expecting, quite honestly.

After a few more gin and tonics, I was feeling friendly, even bold, chatting gaily, loosening up enough to drop the occasional wisecrack. Every time I turned around, someone was handing me another drink, each stronger than the last. Soon, I found myself perched on the arm of a sofa, surrounded by a gang of young men, flipping quips back and forth. I was growing so spoiled in London, surrounded by active, creative, articulate people that I could barely believe I had ever been happy in the brain-dead sycophantic world of the music industry.

But even among this crowd, there seemed to be curious hangers on and dubious doomsayers, quick to latch on to me and somehow dismiss me as a mere accessory of Damien's. Well, even if I was perhaps merely an appendage, I wasn't going to go down without a fight. One particularly persistent fellow seemed determined to engage me in conversation, obviously for the purpose of showing up the depths of my supposed idiocy, forcing his way into the conversation uninvited in order to hold forth at great length.

Somehow the subject of the tunnels under London had come up, and I felt absolutely, swimmingly in my element, repeating wild yarns I'd heard in lectures at school. The interloper, taking up the high ground by commandeering the back of the sofa, decided to expound on the subject, never once guessing that I had once been two years into a degree in architectural history. Rather than growing angry and didactic as to the actual state of my specialist knowledge, I decided to just let him rant, occasionally dragging a red herring across the trail, baiting him into revealing exactly how little he knew.

Suddenly, one of the people Sarah had told me Damien actually approved of, a handsome young man with a shock of ginger hair, sat up, right by my elbow, studying me carefully and listening intently.

"We've just been filming down an abandoned tube station," drawled the insufferable one. "There are sooo many tunnels riddled underneath the city, you know."

"Oh really?" I asked, my eyes wide with innocence. Of course there were, some dating back to the Roman occupation.

"The Victorians were really the master tunnel builders..."

"Those Victorians were just so clever," I agreed, batting my eyelashes. Actually, some of the aqueducts and tunnels dated back to the 17th Century, but what was a hundred years between friends?

Damien's friend with the curly hair winked quickly, almost imperceptibly, at me, then added in a condescending, almost baiting tone. "And you really didn't have the Victorian Age in America, did you?"

"Oh, no, you don't really have that sort of _history_ , in New York City" the onerous prick drawled, with an affected lisp on the whispering S.

"Actually, the New York subway system is one of the most extensive in the world," I let drop, suddenly snapping out of the breathy giggly tone I'd used before. "Half of Manhattan is hollow with train yards stretching up about a mile and a half out of Grand Central Station. In fact, if you go into any skyscraper along Park Avenue, between the Pan Am Building and the Waldorf Astoria. Delightful example of the early Art Deco skyscraper, that hotel, by the way - have you been there? Well, if you go to any of those buildings, you have to take the escalator up to the second floor to take a lift because none of the buildings have proper basements for the elevator shafts because of all the tunnels beneath them."

The insufferable one stared at me in something resembling shock, as if the cuddly animal he had been trifling with had suddenly grown teeth and claws and bitten him. "Oh."

"And by the way, which abandoned line were you filming in? The East London line or the disused Aldwych line at Holborn? Oh, wait, it couldn't be the East London line, as they're refurbishing it in time for the millennium, aren't they?"

"Erm, I'm not really sure," he stuttered, slipping off his perch and backing away as if looking for any excuse to remove himself from a situation that had just become terribly embarrassing. "I'll have to check with the location manager and get back to you."

The man with the ginger hair giggled into his drink as the insufferable one shuffled away. "I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Marcus."

"Kate," I told him, shaking his hand.

"I thought so." I paused, eyeing him carefully, wondering if there was some loaded intention behind the comment. "You're exactly like Damien described you."

"Is that good or bad?"

Marcus snickered. "Depends on whether you view Damien as good or bad. He said you were exactly the way he used to be before he had to learn how to play nicely with the big boys. So tell me, how do you know so much about tunnel systems?"

I lowered my voice. "Promise not to tell a soul?" 

He nodded. "Something _you_ are ashamed of? This has got to be good!"

"Where _does_ this image of me as the shameless, brazen uninhibited wild child come from?" I gasped. "It's the press, isn't it? If only they knew... My secret pop passion is really..." I lowered my voice to a whisper. " _The London Science Museum!_ "

Marcus burst out laughing. "Shocking!"

"Oh, it is. Kate Charms, rock'n'roll bitch, is really a closet geek who's into trains and history and museums! Don't tell Damien, but I even watch Star Trek!"

"You know, Damien loves Star Trek," confided Marcus.

"He does?" Why did that not surprise me? Craning my neck, I looked around for my absent date, but could not see him over the tops of the heads of the other guests.

"You know where you have to get Damien to take you? Rome. You'd utterly love it. The catacombs and all that."

"Oh, I've been to the catacombs," I replied brightly. "As a small child, though."

"Damien knows someone who can get you inside the private parts - not just the bits that they let the tourists in. Can I get you a drink?" he offered, pointing to my expiring glass.

"Yes please. Gin and tonic?" 

Marcus nodded, pulling himself out of the depths of the sofa. I immediately took his place, flopping down onto the cushions, far more comfortable after the hard perch of the chair's arm.

"We're out of tonic," called back Marcus from the table of refreshments. "Can I get you something else?" He reminded me of someone, though in my current state of advancing intoxication, I couldn't quite remember who.

"Nonsense!" I cried. "We'll just have to drink it straight, then."

"I'll bring the bottle then," laughed Marcus, seizing the gin off the table and  making his back over to the couch, attempting to balance on the arm of the couch before collapsing into his former seat, forcing me to move very quickly towards the occupant on the other side of me or have an unwelcome visitor on my lap. "Pardon," he purred, removing the cap and filling his own mug.

"Give us some," I giggled, holding out my cup.

"So when are you going to pose for me?" he demanded abruptly as he splashed liquor into my cup.

"Pose for you?" I asked innocently, batting my eyelids at him. He was sitting so close to me it seemed, well, rude, not to just flirt back. The idea had never even crossed my mind, but suddenly I felt incredibly flattered, my ego and my intellect simultaneously stroked. Visions of voluptuous odalisques floated through my mind. Projecting 200 years into the future, I imagined tourists filtering reverently some gorgeously rich oil painting preserved in the hallowed halls of the Tate Gallery.

"You've never painted a portrait in your life, Marcus," sneered Sarah, snapping me back to reality as she bent over the back of the sofa to relieve him of the bottle of gin, to return it to the drinks table.

"I was thinking more along the lines of a nude," mused Marcus, draping his arm around my shoulder. "A figure study, if you will."

"Well, why not - you've been studying her figure all evening," deadpanned Sarah.

I tittered innocently, as the realisation that this could possibly be flirtation floated through my drunken mind. Without stopping to think, I uncrossed and re-crossed my legs, leaning back and smiling at him mysteriously, twirling a strand of hair between two fingers. Well, I might as well do something to deserve this wild child reputation. "I think I might be persuaded..."

"How about you come round my studio some evening next week," he suggested, leaning so close I could practically feel his breath on my skin.

Suddenly I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders. Leaning my head back, I looked up to see the familiar head and torso of Damien floating somewhere above me. "Hearsey, Darling!" I exclaimed, as the rest of the room seemed to dim and fade in comparison. What was it about those bright blue eyes that made me unable to notice anything else in the world when they were focused on me?

"I just came over to see how you were doing."

"Marcus is going to paint my portrait," I cooed, poking my new friend in the ribs.

"And how much is he going to charge you?" sniggered Damien, bending over to kiss the top of my head.

Marcus cringed visibly, looking as if he wanted to slink away and hide somewhere, muttering some excuse and slouching off back towards the rest of the party.

"Oh, come on Marcus," bellowed Damien sliding easily into the place he had just vacated. "I'm just joking. Come back." His eyes flickered with mischief. I'll pay you double what Suuchi offered if you paint her nude!"

"What's wrong with him?" I inquired, puzzled, nuzzling up against him and rubbing my nose against his ear.

"Long story," laughed Damien, placing a proprietary paw on my thigh and running it up towards the hem of my dress. "We have the same agent, and rumour has it he was not happy in the discrepancies between prices between my work and his work, and threw a bit of a fit one drunken night at the gallery. He's never quite lived it down." Kissing me questioningly, he slipped his fingers up the inside of my thigh, then pulled away slightly, studying my reaction. "Shall we go home?" he suggested with a knowing leer.

"Do we have to?" I protested. "We only just got here..." Despite my earlier trepidation, I had actually been enjoying myself.

Damien pouted petulantly. "I've caught up with my mates. If I have to endure another moment of pretentious stuffed shirts before going home and ravishing you, my head is going to fucking explode."

"But pretentious, condescending people are so much fun to take the piss out of," I explained. Damien laughed, wrapping his arms around me and resting his head on my shoulder. "You start to lead them down the garden path, and see how far you can get, and they don't notice because they think I'm sweet and innocent and stupid, and oh how they will edify me, when all along they're the ones being taken for a ride."

Damien shook with laughter, twining his fingers in my hair. "Ah, a girl after my own heart. But that can get quite tired after a while, don't you think? What happens when you run out of people to play the straight man?"

I smiled. "No, some of them I genuinely liked. The boy with the ginger hair... Gesturing wildly, I pointed at the young man with whom I'd just been discussing the tunnel system under London. "He actually caught on about two minutes into it. He cornered me afterwards and we had a good laugh."

"Marcus?" beamed Damien approvingly. "Oh, he's alright. Better than most. You do like red-headed men, don't you?" He winked at me slyly, "But for the most part these art types are the most intolerably dull, staid and predictable gang of old ladies I've ever known. Why do you think I always hang around with you pop star types?" he teased. "At least you know how to have a good time."

"Oh!" I exclaimed indignantly. "As if you really find a gang of brain-dead sub-moronic arguing about who had a higher chart placing and which strings have more sustain intellectually stimulating."

Damien grinned. "They have better drugs, though."

Suddenly, there was a commotion across the room, near the door. Well, not so much a commotion, as a slow wave-like gust of palpable excitement through the room. Craning his neck, Damien tried to see the cause, but there were too many people in the way.

"Oh, fuck," swore Sarah's voice next to us. " _He's_ here. I did not invite him." Damien sighed and rolled his eyes as if he instantly knew who she meant, but I felt completely in the dark. "You'd think he had something better to do with his time than bother us. Go to balls with other millionaires or whatever it is the idle rich do on Saturday evenings."

Damien turned around, patting Sarah's hand reassuringly. "You should count yourself honoured, dear," he teased. "Poor Marcus over there is shitting himself. Can you imagine how he would react if Charles fucking Suuchi walked into one of his openings? He'd trip over his own self respect trying to ingratiate himself."

"Oh god, and he's here with that Swiss bitch. Of course!" groaned Sarah. My ears pricked up at the mention. This was the second time she'd referred to this female Swiss artist, and the first time had been in some conjunction with Damien.

"You two need to stop being so cynical. After all, if it wasn't for him neither of you would have the money to buy the gin for this party," pointed out Marcus, reappearing beside us as if he'd just heard his name dropped.

Damien glared at him, but Sarah shrugged. "He buys our work. Not our time and our social lives and our fucking souls," she pointed out.

"All the same, I should go and say hullo, since I'm obviously the one he's looking for," sighed Damien, patting me on the leg and pulling himself rather unsteadily to his feet.

"What makes you so sure of that?" teased Sarah. "Perhaps he's finally discovered my genius."

"Well, come on over, I'll introduce him to your genius, then."

Marcus dropped back onto the couch as soon as it was vacant, squeezing in far closer to me than the space necessitated. Out of the corner of my eye, for a moment, I had almost thought it was Thom. _Thom Eboracum!_ That was who he reminded me of, at least physically, with his spiked red hair and his voluptuously full lips, though he probably had a good six inches of height on his doppelganger. "I can't believe it. I don't know what he's doing here," he muttered distractedly, staring off into the distance where the excitement seemed thickest.

"Who is Charles Suuchi, anyway?" I finally scraped up the courage to ask. "I mean, I know who he _is_ , or at least, who everyone seems to think he is and what he does, but what the hell does he actually _do_?"

Marcus took a deep breath and knocked back a slug of gin. He must have refilled his glass of gin, as it was nearly full again. "He's an art collector. Or rather, _the_ art collector. The only serious art collector in all of London at the moment. It's really quite absurd. He made some obscene amount of money during the 80's doing something terribly insalubrious like _advertising_ , god-help-us, and has decided to atone for his sins by becoming a patron of the arts or something. I mean, say what you like about him and his ethics, but he has put vast amounts of money into the arts community, right about the time when the government grants started to be cut, so he's ended up with what seems like a disproportionate amount of power. No one's really sure about where the myth ends and the man begins, but the truth is despite what all these critics, artists and whathaveyou would have you believe, he is probably the most powerful person in the British art world today."

"So, is that why everyone says all this stuff about Damien being his lapdog?"

Marcus burst out laughing and suddenly I felt incredibly guilty for repeating such slanderous gossip about my own lover. Then again, was I repeating something I'd heard or extrapolating something unfairly?

"Well, you're not one to mince words, are you?" he noted. "They do say that, don't they, but generally not in so many words. You _are_ refreshing." He paused for another swig of his drink, which he was now slurping directly from the bottle. "I'd say that Damien created his own myth, but Suuchi bought it lock, stock and barrel. Damien doesn't pander to him the way many of these other artists do, which, I suppose, in a way, is how Damien manages to remain fresh, yet at the same time, why Suuchi tries so hard to try to control Damien. It's a very dysfunctional arrangement," he noted morosely. "But if you hadn't noticed, we're all pretty dysfunctional around here."

"You seem fairly reasonable to me," I observed.

"Och! That's the worst thing you can say to an artist. I'm mad as a hatter, of course. All in the name of my art."

"Mad for it, me," I giggled uncontrollably. "So that's the difference between the art world and the music world. The art world is all artists pretending to be mad, while the music world is all madmen pretending to be artists."

Marcus grinned, catching the reference. He seemed young enough to know who William Gallivant was. Actually, he was very good-looking, with his stylish clothes and that punky haircut. Or perhaps it was just the superficial resemblance to Thom, though he lacked that odd spark in the eyes that made Thom so strangely beautiful. "Astute observation. But you don't strike me as the type to be a Mirage fan."

"I'm not." I grinned slyly. "And it's not even because I'm on the wrong side of _that_ feud, before you ask. I've had some rather unpleasant run-ins with William Gallivant." I went to take another drink, but my tumbler was suddenly empty again. Where the hell had all that gin gone?

"Really?" probed Marcus, tipping half the contents of his glass into my tumbler.

Taking it from him, I drank deeply, shivering at the strength of the straight liquor, feeling a chill run up and down my spine. "I don't particularly feel like talking about it," I warned, changing the subject adroitly. "So will you really paint me?"

"Any colour you like," he flipped back with a flirtatious grin. Actually, he wasn't just good-looking; he was devilishly handsome, a prettier and more dangerous version of Thom. Why the hell did I keep thinking about Thom? I paused, thinking about the sensation of his breath, warm on my collarbone, and I flushed slightly with excitement.

"Purple, of course," I giggled. "It's my favourite colour."

Marcus dug thoughtfully in his jacket pocket, and pulled out a small selection of magic markers. Sifting through them, he pulled out a purple one, then boldly seized my hand, starting to colour the inside of my wrist with ticklish, even vaguely erotic strokes.

"What are you doing?"

"Painting you purple," he deadpanned in response.

"No!" I insisted playfully, attempting to retrieve my hand, but he held it fast, drawing little tiny swirlies up the inside of my arm. "I meant my portrait."

"Ah, but you must disrobe first."

"I bet you say that to all the girls. It's the oldest line in the book. Everyone knows what goes on between artists and their models up in those hot, sweaty garret flats." Was I really flirting back this heavily? Damn, I must be drunker than I thought. Then again, what bloody business of anyone was it if I were? Blinking, I smirked lazily at him from under my lashes.

"I don't have a garret, but my flat gets plenty warm enough during these long, hot, sultry summers. We'll have to get you out of those uncomfortable looking clothes post haste." Reaching over, he slid a cold finger, wet with condensation from the bottle of gin, down my arm, slipping the strap of my dress off my shoulder.

I shouldn't even be thinking about this. I shouldn't even be tempted. Somewhere inside me, the thought of Damien's face flickered across my mind and I looked across the room guiltily. While Sarah chatted with Suuchi, Damien was seemingly engrossed in the company of a tall, busty goat herd of a girl. Was this the Swiss artist Sarah had mentioned Damien having some entanglement with? A flicker of displeasure shot up my spine, and I wrenched my gaze back to Marcus, though I swore I saw Damien watching me out of the corner of his eye.

"Shall we go somewhere else?" suggested Marcus. "My indescribably hot and sticky flat, perhaps?" He bent closer, his breath hot on my bare skin, his wet finger sliding across my knee.

For a moment, I was tempted to say yes, just to see what he'd do, but then, across the room, I caught sight of Damien bending over to brush his lips across Heidi's knuckles, obviously getting quite an eyeful of her ample bosom. The flicker of displeasure turned into a searing flame of jealousy that was getting harder to ignore.

"Your boyfriend has obviously found other plans for the evening," Marcus noted. As Damien slid his arm around the shoulders of the goat herd with an unmistakable glance back towards me, every thought I had ever entertained of sleeping with anyone except Damien went flying out of my head, as I felt a blind, uncontrollable rage of jealousy surge across my mind.

Forgetting the entire half hour's previous conversation and flirtation with Marcus, I shot out of my seat and stormed across the room. I wasn't entirely sure what I was planning to do until I got there, but somewhere between the sofa and the door, I remembered that I was still holding a tumbler full of gin in my hand, and decided that the best place for it to be was all over the bastard cheating heads of Damien and the goatherd. But just as I was stumbling drunkenly across the floor, Suuchi pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and offered them to Damien and his friend. Ever the gentleman, Damien produced a lighter from his jacket and, just as I cocked my arm to throw the gin at Damien and the girl, the elegant, besuited figure of Charles Suuchi stepped forward into the gap, bending his head to allow Damien to light his cigarette.

I tried to stop myself, but my reflexes were so slowed by drunkenness that the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. Although I somehow managed not to actually throw the tumbler, the gin was already in flight. My abrupt halt served only to alter the contents' course, spraying out in a glistening arc, soaking Charles Suuchi, tuxedo and all, from head to toe, in gin.

I wanted the floor to open, and swallow me. There was no way to play this cool, no way to deny what had just happened, as Suuchi stood before me, his now-drenched cigarette still hanging from his lips, as the goatherd's mouth hung open in a perfect O of shock. "I'm... I'm... I'm so, so sorry, sir," I stuttered, staring at him in horror, desperately reaching for some explanation for my behaviour. The cigarette. The sopping wet, extinguished lighter, with Damien, perfectly dry, beyond. "I thought you were on fire."

Damien exploded in laughter, riotous, shaking, tears rolling down his face as he contracted with uncontrollable mirth, bending over and clutching his stomach. But Damien's glee proved infectious. He looked so comical, doubled over with merriment, that the goatherd also started to giggle.

Seizing a napkin off a nearby table, she dabbed at Mr Suuchi's face, stopping the rivulets of gin that were running down his hair to his forehead from getting into his eyes. "I'm sorry, Charles, but you do look a sight."

Sarah appeared with an actual towel, shooting me an odd expression before turning to help dry Suuchi's jacket. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Suuchi. Can I get you anything? Another drink?"

Being fussed over by two attractive young women, Suuchi seemed to be taking it in better humour. "Well, I must say, this is at least excellent quality gin, though I don't suppose there's any left now. Dry clothes are probably out of the question, but I don't suppose anyone has a dry cigarette?"

Digging in his jacket, Damien extracted a pack of Silk Cuts and handed one over. Torn between seething with anger towards him and embarrassment over Suuchi's drenched clothes, I turned on my heel and simply fled the room. The front door of the gallery was guarded by bouncers, so I sped in the opposite direction, back through the office towards a deserted service corridor. I had to try a couple of doors before I found one that was unlocked, and slipped through, only to be confronted with a staircase that was going down. Were we on the ground floor or the first? I could no longer remember how we'd got in, I'd drunk so much, but I slipped down the steps, hoping to find an exit.

No such luck. The set of double doors at the bottom of the stairs were not just locked, but firmly padlocked shut. I rattled them a few times, but they would not give, then rested my head wearily against the cold metal of the frames. Maybe I could just stay down here all night, until the rest of the party left, all of them, Suuchi, the goatherd, Damien, the lot, and left me alone to my seething shame. In fact, Damien could just bloody leave with the goatherd and... damn, that excruciating plume of jealousy shot across my mind like a physical pain.

The soft tread of footsteps on the concrete steps yanked me out of my maudlin fantasy, and I whirled around to confront Damien, standing halfway down the stairs, peering at me curiously. "Kate? I was wondering where you'd got to."

At the sight of him, the knife twisted deeper in my gut. "Go away. Just leave me alone."

He paused for a moment, sucking on his cigarette. "Alright, if that's what you want." Shrugging, he turned and made his way back up the stairs. But at the top, there was another pause, then the footsteps turned around and came back, echoing as his scruffy trainers appeared at the top of the stairs, completely out of keeping with the rest of his posh suit. "No, actually... I don't think you are alright. I'm well enough accustomed to your usual tantrums and diva theatrics, to know that this isn't one of them. What's up?" Padding to the middle of the stairs, he sat down on one of the steps, gazing down at me evenly.

I bit my lip, trying to keep my bile from spilling out all over him, but the emotions swirling drunkenly around my head were too much to keep in. "You don't have to stay. I can see how much you'd rather be flirting with that fucking Swiss goatherd," I seethed, with a side order of passive aggression.

For a moment, Damien looked genuinely perplexed, then realisation dawned across his face, but then he went back to confused before passing into faint amusement. "Swiss goatherd? Heidi? She's from Berlin, not Switzerland. Oh, I get it. You _are_ funny tonight. That's nearly as good as your little fire extinguishing routine. I haven't laughed so hard in... days." He flashed another naughty grin.

"So you don't deny you were flirting with that... Heidi?"

"Flirting?" He shrugged. "Well, I like Heidi." The look on my face must have been murderous, because his eyebrows shot up. "Wait - no. Not like that. I like her _work_."

"I'm sure you like a bit more than that," I snorted.

"That's a bit of a sexist assumption to make, Kate. I am actually capable of appreciating my female colleagues for their minds, rather than their bodies, you know." His eyes flashed defensively. "Yes, I may flirt a bit, but I always find, if you're charming, and you compliment people, make them feel good, you get a lot more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Or in this case, signed prints. Which is what I was after."

"I don't believe you. I saw you watching me with Marcus... you were doing it specifically to get back at me."

The look of utter perplexed bafflement on Damien's face was unmistakable. " _What_?" He wasn't even angry, or defensive, he simply didn't seem to even understand what I'd just implied.

"You saw me flirting with Marcus, so you decided to flirt with Heidi to... make me jealous." Even as I said it aloud, I realised how bonkers it sounded, but  I felt drunkenly committed to having it out.

"Don't be absurd. I could see you weren't the slightest bit serious."

"How would _you_ know..." I stopped myself before I could go any further. Of course I hadn't been serious about Marcus, it was just some game I was playing for the ego gratification of it. But how the hell could the arrogant bastard tell that just by looking at me?

"I saw the way you looked at him. You were looking at him the way you used to look at Jeremy Kane. As if you thought he was a complete fucking idiot, and you were just indulging him. It's the way you look at Tristram, the way you looked at that berk backstage at Glastonbury - and funnily enough, it's the way you look at Alex Jones, well at least these days."

I glared at him sullenly. That should still smart, but it didn't hurt a bit. Mostly, I was intrigued by the idea that Damien had studied me closely enough to notice what my expressions actually meant. "Did I used to look at Alex a different way?"

"Yeah." He took another long drag of his cigarette before crumpling it under the heel of his shoe, his face slowly cracking in a crooked smile as he spoke. "You used to look at Alex the way you look at me now." He raised an eyebrow. "I really like that."

"You arrogant shit."

He laughed. "No, I meant, I like the way you look at me. You look at me like you want to devour me. Sometimes like you want to fuck me. But sometimes like you want to crack open my skull and lap up my brain, like a kitten with your dirty little tongue."

I couldn't help but crack a smile. That was Damien's charm, that he was too filthy and absurd and funny to ever stay angry at for long.

"Yep. You're going to bludgeon me any second... Maybe that's what the glass of gin was intended for, rather than for extinguishing Charles Suuchi?"

I looked away pathetically. "I'm sorry. I was really fucking jealous."

"So because _you_ were jealous, you decided I was?" Again, the puzzled expression. "I thought you didn't believe in sexual jealousy? You said it was just social convention, after all?" he quoted back to me almost exactly from some long-forgotten argument. "Just so fucking barbarous. So... animalistic. All social convention, you said. And what about the Pill and all that? People can pinpoint with almost clinical accuracy when and with whom they procreate, remember. All those biological 'reasons' for jealousy simply no longer exist. It's just... _irrational_."

I bit my lip, hearing my own words thrown back at me, and felt like I was about to burst into tears. "Is that what you want, then, you want an open relationship, where we both go out and fuck other people, and then discuss our conquests calmly over the breakfast table?"

"Is that what _you_ want?"

"Fuck no!" The speed with which I replied terrified me. I had always been so confused, trying to figure out what I _did_ want in a relationship. But it seemed now, at least, I had a clear idea of what I didn't want.

"OK, good, we're agreed on that. Because I may not be a particularly jealous man, but I don't like sharing." The relief on his face was palpable. "Oh, come here, you foolish woman."

Obediently, I went over and sat at the bottom of the stairs, leaning my head against his knees as he reached down to gently stroke my hair. "I know I'm being a completely irrational idiot. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I'm making you miss your party."

"There will be other parties. There won't be another you."

Burying my face in the fabric of his trousers, I inhaled his distinctive smell, the faint whiff of cigarette smoke, mixed with the tang of his musk. Even the scent of him reassured me. The knots in my stomach were finally untangling, but there was a new awareness in their place. A moment of panic as I realised it, followed by a fierce determination. "I was actually jealous. I think that means... no, wait, it definitely means..."

"Means what, precisely?" The puzzlement was giving way to impatience.

"That I love you." I closed my eyes so he couldn't see the abject weakness in them.

After a moment of stunned silence, he burst out laughing. Not the reaction I'd been hoping for, but, still, a very, very _Damien_ reaction. Bending over, he kissed the top of my head. "I love you, too. I have done for a very long time."

Raising my head, I looked up at him carefully, then wondered if this was the 'devouring' gaze he meant. "Then for fucks sake - why have you never said so?"

Laughing even harder this time, he played gently with my hair. "I've been letting you take the lead in this, sweetie. You may have noticed. I never wanted to push you, I always wanted this to be your decision, your choice. You needed to be with someone because you wanted to be with them, not because they were pressuring you into it. I confess; I've been playing the Long Game for a very, very long time. Pretty much since I met you."

I smiled shyly. That had been a long game. Years, maybe. He had been so patient, he had just done whatever it was I asked of him. When I just wanted no-strings sex, he gave it to me, offering nothing more than friendship. When I wanted a boyfriend, he had grinned and slipped into being my boyfriend. But he had become so comfortable, so agreeable, that he had quickly become indispensable. I could no longer imagine a life without him.

"But..." Why was I doing that? Why did there always have to be a _but_? "You assume that I knew all along what I wanted. I didn't have a clue. I still don't."

"It doesn't matter. You're here. You love me. That's a start."

I frowned. I had always thought that falling in love was the end of the story, not the beginning. "But what about you, Damien? What do _you_ want?" It shocked me that this was the first time I'd actually considered this. I looked up at him, trying to work out the inscrutable look on his face. I loved him. This was going to take a bit of getting used to. Fuck, he loved me. My stomach did a kind of thing where it felt like it turned inside out, but almost in a nice way. Was this what love felt like?

"Well, I know what I want, I've known all along, but I'm not sure you're going to like it," he teased.

"Why? Is it dirty? Go on, tell me." My lips curled up in a naughty grin, in anticipation of whatever filthy proposition he had in mind.

He moved his mouth silently, as if rolling the words around on his tongue, then looked up to the ceiling, then closed his eyes, then fixed his penetrating blue gaze on me. I'd never seen him look so handsome, with his hair curling over his forehead, and that mischievous smile lighting up his narrow lips. "Marry me."

At first, I thought I hadn't quite heard him right. The booze was playing tricks on me. My stomach flip-flopped and I swallowed hard.

"Fuck, this is not the way you're supposed to do it, is it? I should be down on one knee with a ring, and, like, rose petals and crap, but... fuck, Kate, you've never particularly been a conventional girl. You don't want a conventional proposal, do you?"

"No... No, shit, I'm not saying no, I mean that I don't give a shit about bended knees and rose petals, but... Bloody hell. _Marry_ you?" My head reeled. How was I supposed to make this decision now? Drunk out of my mind, upset, confused... But when I looked at him, his face turning slowly from his usual bold confidence to an expression of slight concern, when I saw the fear, the tiny hesitation of insecurity behind his eyes... my stomach did that flip-flop thing again. This was it, wasn't it? That weird flip-flop thing, that sense of dizziness that I was standing at the top of a very high cliff, looking over, but that if I jumped, I could actually fly... that was love, wasn't it?

"For the love of god, Kate, say something? Fuck. Too soon, huh?" The cockiness was gone, I was looking at the unvarnished face of his real emotions, and I saw the need in his eyes. He really did love me. He always had.

"No..." I murmured. His face fell. "Fuck! No, I don't mean _no_. I mean, it's not too soon. I mean yes. Yes as in, let's do it, _yes_." I couldn't quite bring myself to say that word - _married_ \- but yes was the only word that made sense when I looked at him.

The grin that engulfed his face was absolutely radiant. I reached up and kissed him, and felt my head spin in a way that had nothing to do with the gin.

"I feel fucking invincible right now," Damien told me, taking me by the hand and squeezing it hard. "Come on, let's go back to that dreadful fucking party - which I am now going to remember forever as the best fucking party of my fucking life."

I laughed as he pulled me, unsteadily, to my feet, and let him lead me back up the stairs. As we emerged from the office, Sarah immediately clocked us and made a beeline for Damien.

"You have ruined my life, Damien" she hissed, though she was half smiling. I felt awkward, odd, realising that she blamed Damien for the entire altercation, as if I had had no part in it. "People are forever going to remember my big opening as the night that Suuchi got a face-full of gin."

"Well, at least they'll remember it, Sarah, my dear," Damien shrugged with a disarming wink. "That's the important part - in fact, it's the only part."

"Christ. This is not how I want to be remembered. The theme of my exhibit is love... desire, adoration, tenderness, intimacy... I don't want my best work of my entire career associated with a millionaire drenched in Bombay Sapphire."

Squeezing my hand, Damien dipped his chin and smiled his most babyfaced grin. It made me go weak in the knees, but Sarah seemed immune to his charm. "Alright. Well, I've got a bigger announcement. So I guarantee you that in ten years, people will have forgotten Suuchi's face-full of gin, and associate your opening with true fucking love."

"What. Could you. Possibly..." Sarah started to protest, but Damien cut her off by picking up an empty bottle and a knife, making such a racket that he managed to silence the room.

"I've got an announcement to make!" As he moved to the centre of the room, clutching a wine bottle in one hand and a large kitchen knife in the other, he could not have attracted more attention, grinning like a wide-eyed maniac. "Really great art," he pronounced "is art that forces you to change your mind, or confronts you with all the things that you have never properly _seen_ before. My friend Sarah, she's one of those great artists. Her work here tonight, it's about love - but it's not about that cartoon Hollywood love, or some saccharine sentiment. It's about real, visceral, messy, fire-in-your-belly love. That kind of huge, overwhelming, love that changes lives - but also all the small kinds of love that get you through every damn day."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Sarah glared at him, as if challenging him to get to the point.

"This work, it made me realise... well, no, it made _us_ realise, exactly what it is that we have, Kate and me." Holding out his hand, he gestured towards me. "So you might as well be the first to know. Inspired by Sarah's work, Kate and I have taken the plunge. We've just got engaged tonight."

All around us, there were cries of congratulations, the roar of gossip and drunken celebration. Holding up the bottle of wine, he proposed a toast, but was drowned out by people offering us drinks, congratulations, and best wishes.

Beside me, Sarah rolled her eyes and sighed. "He always does this. He can't stand not being the centre of attention. I hope that you can get used to it." But then she turned to me and smiled. "I'm sorry, where are my manners? Congratulations. I genuinely do hope that you make each other very happy."

I reached out and squeezed her gently around the shoulders. "I am so sorry that we ruined your opening."

Sarah smiled long-sufferingly. "I'm already used to it. I did go out with him for five years, after all."

This was news to me, and in another lifetime I'd have been hugely upset by it, but somehow it just felt like a jigsaw puzzle piece slotting into place. I hugged her again, more tenderly.

"Better you than me, is all I have to say," she laughed. "You probably need a drink, don't you, after what you've just agreed to?"

Gliding like a battleship, Charles Suuchi suddenly appeared in the middle of the floor, looking ever so slightly displeased, though his manners remained impeccable. "Allow me to stand the happy couple some Dom Perignon..."

"If my lovely fiancee can manage to get it in her and not on you," Damien replied flippantly, looking over at me and winking before gesturing me over. Moving to his side, I took his hand and laid my head on his shoulder. Everyone was talking at once, but all I could hear was Damien's heartbeat in my ear. _He loves me. He loves me. He loves me._ seemed to thud faintly through the veins of his chest. The champagne was produced, and poured, with Damien insisting that Sarah got the third glass after the two of us.

"Posh champagne. Nice, thanks. You utter cunt." But she spoke with endearment, rather than annoyance, and quickly squeezed him and kissed her congratulations on his cheek. So even after what sounded like a fairly long-suffering five year relationship, he still managed to inspire that kind of affection. It seemed like a good sign.

"See? Your opening will be remembered for years," teased Damien, nuzzling the top of my head with his nose. "Come on, Katie, which one is your favourite?"

I brightened slightly, raising my head from the silk of his jacket. "No, not this trick again," I tried to laugh, remembering what had happened the first night he had asked me that question.

"It's not a trick. I was going to bloody buy you one as a wedding present," Damien offered.

"Who says she even likes my paintings, Damien?" pointed out Sarah.

"If she's going to be my wife, she's going to like your bloody paintings."

"Allow me to purchase one in your honour," Charles Suuchi interjected.

"No way, mate. Wedding gift list will be registered at Liberty, as it's my missus' favourite shop. This one is on me."

Suuchi raised an eyebrow, prickling with annoyance, then gently took Sarah by the arm and escorted her off, presumably to do business anyway.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Kate's hangover clears, she starts getting cold feet about her engagement. And after an afternoon of criticism from Thom Eboracum over her "Groucho Club Lifestyle" and a belly-full of cheap wine, infatuation turns to infidelity.

I woke early the next morning, my body drenched in a cold sweat despite the sunlight flooding in, bathing the bed in a warm glow. My heart was pounding in my throat, as I pushed off the tendrils of the panicked dreams. I had been trapped in some dark and insufferably hot place, my limbs trapped in some viscous, gooey quagmire, unseen arms snaking out to hold me in place every time I tried to move.

In our excitement at coming home and falling into bed to make frenzied and urgent love the previous night, one of us had forgotten to close the curtains, and the bright July sunlight was splashed across the bed, explaining the heat of my dreams, and Damien's arm was clenched tightly around my waist. Normally, his customary habit of wrapping his arm tightly and possessively around me as he slept was comforting and familiar, but this morning, it felt strangely like the jaws of an iron trap.

With some effort, I managed to push him off me, but instead of waking, he merely snorted loudly and rolled over, the soft susurration of his breaths becoming a steady snore, then abating with a shudder as he fell back into deep sleep. Staring down at his sleeping form, the panic started to rise again in the back of my throat. I wasn't ready for this, I was too young, I still had too much living to do, too much of my self to discover before I could possibly be ready to commit myself, body, heart and soul to another person for the rest of my life.

Damien loved me far too much, he expected far too much from me if he thought that I was ready for this. Did I love him? Sudden doubt filled my mind. Last night, I had been so certain, but the morning's sobriety brought a sudden wobble. I loved him too much, in some ways. But not nearly enough in others. It couldn't possibly be real. Love was this huge, grand, obsessive fire that took over your mind and your soul from the first moment that you saw the object of your affection, not this slow, building fondness that had snuck up on me unaware. I didn't love him, I just needed him really badly. No, that's nonsense, I told myself resolutely, picking up the nearest article of clothing, which happened to be his shirt from the previous night, and wrapping it about my shoulders.

Fighting the urge to gather all my things and run away before he even woke, I padded over to the stairwell to try to get some air. But instead of slipping down to the street, I started to climb upwards, toward the roof. Propping the door open with a can of paint, I slipped out into the sunlight, delighting in the feel of the coarse gravel against my bare toes. The view up here was beautiful, looking out across the river and all the way across London, spread out before me like a map. Damien was a fool to let this space go to waste. If this were my home, I would drag a picnic table, some deck chairs and a big beach umbrella up here and have barbecues in the summer.

As I tip-toed to the edge and stared down at the murky water of the Thames, I suddenly realised that this was my home now. I was nesting already, wasn't I? Making plans for our married life. _God, no!_ Preserve me from couplehood! Soon we'd start to pay the personality tithe and become boring and un-fun and merge into one unit all Sunday newspapers and carpools. Sitting down in a patch of shade beside the chimney pots, I bit my lip, picked at my toes, and then slowly, without a sound, started to cry.

There was the sound of the door opening, then crunching on the gravel. A shadow fell over me, and I looked up to see Damien standing, looking down at me with concern in his eyes, his dressing gown wrapped around him like a kimono.

"Kate... I was wondering where you'd got to. I woke up alone in a bed positively seething with sunlight. Not exactly the first thing one wants to see when one has a bad hangover. Are you trying to kill me already?" When I did not answer, he bent over to peer at me, then slowly lowered himself to sit next to me. "What's the matter, now?"

"Damien, I don't know if I can go through with this," I stuttered, trying to keep my voice even.

Sighing deeply, Damien rubbed his face with his hands then turned back to me. "Why? Give me one good reason."

"I... I..." How the hell did I put it all into words? It seemed so vast and overwhelming.

"Is it me?" demanded Damien. He sounded angry, yet at the same time, so small and so vulnerable. Damien never sounded vulnerable; he always sounded strong and in charge and in control.

"No, oh my god, it's not you, you're perfect. Too perfect. It's completely me," I tried to protest, but he cut me off.

"Bullshit. That's the oldest line in the book. When they say it's not you, it's always you. What is it? Come on, out with it!"

"Please, don't shout at me! I have the mother of all hangovers," I whined. Damien shut up, biting his fingernails and looking off into the distance, intently studying the progress of a barge making its way under Tower Bridge. "No, I was just thinking... about last night, and... Damien, you want too much from me, I'm only going to let you down. What if I had shagged Marcus? I'm pathologically incapable of being faithful to anyone," I confessed, unintentionally parroting Alex's exact words from some long-forgotten argument. "I fuck up everything. Every relationship with anyone I've ever cared about, and I don't want to do that to you. I care way too much about you to ever put you through that."

"Well, I appreciate the sentiment, Kate, but don't you think I'm a big boy, and I'm old enough to make that decision by myself?" he scoffed. I stared at him, frustrated. Damien didn't play by the rules; he never played by the rules, but how could he make snide jokes when I was trying to talk so seriously? But then I realised that it wasn't a joke - his eyes were dead serious. "You've got to come up with better than that, because you're not going to frighten me off that easily."

"I know that you're not jealous, but I am. I'm horrible. I'm a hypocrite. I'm a cheat, plain and simple," I moaned, full of self pity and self loathing.

"The reason you cheat is because you've never in your life been with anyone who's actually your equal and is capable of giving you everything you need." I stared at him, unable to believe he actually had the boldness to say it. But this statement wasn't coming out of jealousy - he was simply stating what he saw as elegantly simple fact. "You love me. You said it yourself. And you are going to grow, over time, to love me so much that you won't _want_ to be with anyone else."

I stared at him, gobsmacked by his cocky self confidence. "You really believe that." Because no one else ever had.

"Yes." There was a hint of smugness this time, but it was the same perfectly level-headed declaration of fact. "Because that is exactly how _I_ feel about you. You don't scare me, Kate Gordon. You don't intimidate me. I don't want to hear any of this pseudo-new ago psychobabble about 'fear of intimacy' or 'fear of commitment.' You are going to do this, and you are going to do it because you want to and what's more, you're going to _like_ it."

The imperiously serious look on his face was so utterly priceless that I forgot my anger and my annoyance at his refusal to be properly cowed by my display of moodiness, and simply started to laugh, trying to contain myself at first, then bursting out into utter hysterics. Damien tried to maintain his po-faced dignity, then started to shake, noiselessly at first, then breaking out into giggles himself.

"You have to admit I sounded pretty convincing there for a minute," he boasted.

"No, this is not on," I suddenly blurted out, abruptly halting my mirth. "I know what you're doing. It's this same fucking bullshit. You think you're somehow going to _save me from myself_ or whatever. Catch a whiff of a woman in distress, and you think you're a fucking White Knight or something."

"I am your knight in shining arrrrr-mourrrr..." drawled Damien, breaking into a full-on Mick Jagger impersonation. "Coming to your emotional rescuuuuue..."

"Shut up!" I snapped. "That's exactly it. I'm not some weak, powerless maiden stuck up in a tower waiting for you to come and rescue me from an evil dragon."

"No, of course not. I think any self-respecting dragon would be scared shitless of you. Ouch!" Damien rubbed the spot on his arm where I smacked him. "Is that really what you think I am? Can you see me on a horse?"

"Only if it was cut in half and..."

"Don't say it!" he warned. "Bloody hell, no, Kate. You don't want to be saved. That's bollocks. What the hell do I want with some prissy princess in a tower anyway? If there's a dragon in the town, well, hey, I see you've already got a bow. Here, I have some arrows, you jump out and distract the dragon and I'll shoot it."

I pouted. "No! You distract the dragon, and I get to shoot it."

"No, see, the maiden has to go out and distract it, cause everyone knows that dragons like maidens better," Damien insisted.

"Humph! I'm hardly a maiden!' I snorted. "No, no, no. See, this is a feminist fairy tale, so it's a female dragon, and it needs a handsome young man to go out and distract it by waggling his bum," I contradicted.

"Oh, well, when you find one, let me know," he chortled wryly.

"You, you moron," I assured him, reaching out and pushing his unruly dark hair back to kiss his forehead. It was just getting just long enough to dangle tantalisingly in his face, lending him a soft and sensitive air, like a Victorian poet.

"Needs to be cut, doesn't it?" he observed, glancing up at his hair and changing the subject deftly.

"It does not!" I protested. "One thing we're getting straight right now - if I'm going to marry you, no more of this convict look. You're cutting your hair when I say it needs to be cut."

"Oh. You won't be happy unless I've got one of those foppish mops like your pop star boyfriends, will you?" he taunted. "Bloody hell, this is the part about getting married that all my mates warn you about. One day you wake up and your closet is full of _'nice'_ clothes and you've got some stylish haircut and you're not allowed to grow a beard."

"And promise to shave at least every other day!" I added, quickly getting in all my complaints.

"Bloody hell!" protested Damien. "I knew it was coming! I knew it! Next you'll be telling me that we need to trade in my sportscar for a minivan!" Suddenly his eyes gleamed wickedly. "I'll make you a deal. I'll shave every day if I get to banish all your knickers."

"What?" I gasped in mock indignity. "Why are you so obsessed with my going without my knickers? It's just not comfortable!"

Damien leered, cocking his head to peer between my legs. "You're not wearing any right now, are you?"

"I just got out of bed!" I protested. "Pervert!" I added, batting his head away from my lap as he attempted to confirm his suspicions. "And I would _never_ drive a minivan! If you _ever_ hear the words minivan or tupperware or school run come out of my mouth, you have my permission to drag me off, beat me, relieve me of my knickers and turn me into your personal sex slave. Just because we're married, there's no reason we have to act like we're dead!"

"Deal," agreed Damien, then paused for a moment, pointing down. "Hey, Kate, can you see down on the road over there - what kind of car is that making an illegal right turn?"

I craned my neck to peer down the street. "It's a silver mini... You bastard!" Leaning over, I pounded him playfully in the shoulder, then paused to kiss him, twining my fingers in the incipient curls at the back of his neck. We were really going to do it, weren't we? It hardly seemed concrete until this moment. _Engaged_. I was engaged; what a bizarre thought. "Wait a minute," I suddenly piped up. "Shouldn't I have a ring or something?"

"D'oh!" Damien smacked his hand against his head like a cartoon character. "We're not doing this properly at all, are we? If I'd planned this... oh, _shit!_ " He knocked his head back against the chimney as if he'd forgotten something criminally important.

"What?" I asked, unconsciously running my hand over the back of his head to make sure that he hadn't hurt himself.

"We have to call my mum," he explained sheepishly. "God, she's never even met you. She's going to throw a fit. We'll probably have to go up there this week."

Parents. Oh my god. This truly was for real, wasn't it? I had only just got used to the idea of being engaged, and now I was having parents thrown at me? Or rather, parent, in Damien's case. "This week?" I asked in a tiny voice. "Can't, we don't have time, I'm leaving for tour the day after tomorrow."

"Oh come on, Kate, be brave. It won't be that bad."

"I'm not good with parents. She'll hate me!" I whined.

"Come on! She's used to me, isn't she?" Damien urged, standing up and extending his hand to me. "She'll adore you. Let's ring her on the phone and tell her the good news."

 

\--------------------

 

There were so many people to be told. I talked to his mother for nearly an hour, being regaled with adorable stores about what Damien was like as a boy. He was right, we did like each other, almost instantly. I had been terrified that we would get off on the wrong foot, two highly opinionated women with strong personalities, but there were only two questions she needed to ask me before she made up her mind.

Did I love Damien? Without hesitation, I told her, unreservedly, _yes_.

Was I a feminist? I told her I'd grown up with posters of Susan B. Anthony and Emmeline Pankhurst on my bedroom wall, and of course I was a feminist - what else could I possibly say? _No, I believe in structural gender inequality_? Fuck that, I swore, then instantly apologised for swearing. But she just laughed and replied in her bluff, no-nonsense Leeds accent, _Indeed, fuck that_. And we became friends.

And then Damien called Alex and Em, maybe because I was still slightly too scared to, or maybe because I wanted him to do the boasting, get it out of the way, but either way, it didn't matter. Alex was pleased, and Em, Em was transported with delight, instantly inviting us to celebratory drinks at the Groucho before dinner at the Ivy.

"Can't," Damien reminded me, as I nearly accepted.

"Why not?"

"You've got a recording session out in Oxford on Monday afternoon, remember?"

"Oh. Fuck. No, I had completely forgotten..." How on earth did he know my own schedule better than I did?

"Your little red-headed friend doesn't really strike me as the type to be understanding if you skip out on him. Never mind. We can have proper celebratory drinks, party, stag do, whatever, when you get back from tour, alright?"

 

\--------------------

 

I set my alarm early, and tried to wake before Damien so I could slip from the house before he could tease me. Nevertheless, Damien called after me as I tried to sneak down the stairs. "We're meeting Alex and Em at the Groucho at 7pm - don't forget!"

"I won't forget," I assured him from between gritted teeth.

"And tell Thom I said hullo..."

"I will." I most certainly won't.

"And check to see if the mail's come yet..."

"Damien..." Darting down the stairs before he could make any other demands, I checked my watch and slipped out into the street, heading for the train station. I didn't want to be any more indebted to Damien for that car, as well as his good will. But as I rounded the corner, I saw the mail cart rattling off down the street, and returned to the house to check the mailbox. Bills, an invitation to another opening, and... what's this? Mail for me? Turning it over a couple of times, I read the return address several times before opening it, but it wasn't until I was safely ensconced on the 8:15 commuter train to Oxford that I dared to open it.

Unfolding the official looking stationary, I stared at the heading on the paper. Family Court? Oh, of course! The motion I had filed a few weeks earlier appealing the decision regarding my visitation rights with Ian. My heart skipped with joy, assuming it was good news because they had responded so quickly.

 

> Dear Ms. Gordon
> 
> We regret to inform you that we will be unable to process your claim, due to the status of the minor in question as an American citizen. As such, the British legal system has no jurisdiction over the custody rights over the minor.
> 
> In order to process an appeal on behalf of the minor, an application for British citizenship must be filed by the custodial parent. Please bear in mind that in order for British citizenship to be granted, the person in question must have been born within the United Kingdom, or have at least one parent of British citizenship. Please see Pamphlet BN-407.5-b(1998) for further details.
> 
> Thank you for your inquiry, etc.

 

I slumped back, pressing my head against the glass, barely even noticing the countryside sliding by outside. My petition had been denied. How could they? Ian had every right to be a British citizen, but for the accident of his being born in a hospital in New York City. Custodial parent? Tristram would never agree to anything that helped my case against him. It seemed absurd to go all the way back to New York to fight for custody of a child that lived in London, born to two parents who were both British citizens.

Staring out the window, I bit back the tears, refusing to allow myself the luxury of crying, despite the hopelessness of the situation. How the bloody hell was I going to do this while on tour of the States? The first time round, family court had been a hellish labyrinth of mysteriously immobile court dates and forms that had to be filed in triplicate on opposite sides of the city during certain lunar phases. There was no way I was going to be able to go through that again while sitting in a bus halfway between New Mexico and Arizona. How long was this tour? 3 months? Possibility of stretching out to 6 to hit the European and Asian markets? Ian's first Halloween; his first Christmas - would I even be able to share in them? I couldn't even begin to start the lengthy legal process until when? 1999? Ian would be over a year old by then. And how long would the trial take? It could be nearly two years of his life, just denied to me. Would he even remember who I was by that point?

For a moment, I contemplated tearing up the letter into a hundred tiny pieces in frustration, then shrugged and folded it up, pushing it back into its envelope and stuffing the envelope into my bag, out of sight and out of mind.

Climbing off the train at Oxford, I surveyed the platform, smiling when I saw Thom standing at the opposite end, his hands in his pockets, but a smile broadening across his face as he saw me.

"Fucking horrible time of the morning, this is," he grumbled, standing awkwardly in front of me, playing with his feet. Despite his protestations, he was freshly shaved, and actually dressed rather nicely in clean black jeans, a familiar looking jacket and a royal blue v-necked shirt that made his eyes sparkle and his hair seem almost unnaturally red.

"It's not so bad," I commiserated, following him towards his car, though I did not particularly feel in the mood for polite conversation.

"How was your art opening?" ventured Thom, unlocking the door for me before swinging around to his side of the car.

"Um..." In all of the commotion, I didn't think I'd actually got a chance to really look at any of the art. "Eventful."

"Eventful good, or eventful bad?" laughed Thom, starting the ignition and pulling away with a spray of gravel and the protestation of an overworked engine.

"I got engaged."

Thom slammed on the brakes to narrowly avoid smashing into a car he'd been tailgating. "You _what_?" he demanded, taking his eyes off the road and casting that piercing blue gaze in my direction.

"Damien and I got engaged," I repeated, trying to force some conviction into my voice, but it seemed to get weaker instead of stronger. I knew it was the car he was angry at me, not me, but the disgust in his voice bothered me more than I cared to admit.

Thom remained silent for quite some time, his eyebrows knitted together and his lips drawn. "What the bloody hell possessed you to do that?" he finally ejected, popping the car into overdrive as he hit the open road.

"You know, you could _pretend_ be happy for us!" I exploded, without meaning to sound quite so angry, though Thom seemed to treat this reaction as perfectly natural. The gnawing uneasiness in the pit of my stomach was bad enough, I didn't need to hear anyone else's trepidation on the subject. Avoiding his gaze, I stared down at the folded train schedule in my hand, trying to figure out which was the best train to take to get back to London in time for dinner. "Why are there no trains in the middle of the afternoon?"

"It's a commuter train, everyone's trying to get back _from_ London," Thom shrugged, suddenly completely calm again. Despite the rumours I'd heard of his terrible temper, he seemed to snap out of it almost as quickly as he snapped in.

"I either have to leave at 3pm, and get to the Groucho ridiculously early, or not leave until 6 and risk being late. Em always yells at Kate and Jarvis when they're late and I don't want to risk making her mad..." I muttered, more to myself than him, trying to remind myself of the mundane details of my normal life, though I realised awkwardly as soon as the words were out of my mouth how much it sounded like precisely the shameless sort of namedropping the Groucho was notorious for.

"The _Groucho_?" sneered Thom, taking his eyes off the road to glare at me with what could only be classed as open disgust. "And this is what you're marrying into..."

"Don't even start with me!" I snarled, throwing my hands up in the air. The last thing I wanted to endure at this moment was a lecture from Thom about my drinking companions.

Tearing down the narrow road leading to their studio at breakneck speeds, Thom slammed the car into neutral, pulling up just short of the building, and put on the parking break, the engine shuddering hideously then stalling. Climbing out of the car, I followed him into the studio. As he peeled off his coat and deposited it on the futon, I realised why it looked so familiar - it was the same jacket I'd left there by mistake earlier in the week.

"So how was your fucking weekend, then?" I tossed back with a smile, the anger draining out of me.

"Absolutely maudlin. Dragged over the coals by my girlfriend's parents, saying we've been living together for god knows how many years, why the hell don't we get married already? Never mind the fact that it's not me balking at the idea, it's _her_ , saying that I'm not fucking stable and I need to get my own fucking head sorted and besides, marriage is an outdated and sexist institution, blah blah blah..." He quieted slightly, throwing himself down into the producer's chair and flicking all the switches on. "Two days of that; that's how my fucking weekend was." It was amazing how he managed to go from screaming his head off to normal conversation within two sentences. For some reason, it made me feel very young, as if I was treading on tip-toes around my parents' rows.

Suddenly I felt terrible for rubbing what he must have perceived as my domestic bliss in his face. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he shrugged, then leaned over the board, resting his head in his hands and rubbing his eyes. "I didn't get much sleep last night, so don't mind me." Padding up behind him, I boldly put my hands on his shoulders and slowly started to massage his knotted muscles, rubbing my fingers back and forth around his neck. "Oh god, that feels really amazing," he purred, the anger draining out of him as he leaned his head back, his eyes half closed. "...though what I really need right now is not a massage but a gallon jug of sweet German wine."

"At ten o'clock in the morning?" I laughed.

"I suppose we should at least wait until noon, eh? Oooh, a little to the right, please."

"Might not be such a bad idea," I muttered, digging into the soft flesh of his back with my fingertips. "Let's at least try to get this mixed properly first."

"I suppose you're right," he sighed, the hostility draining out of him underneath my hands. "Just keep doing that for a few more minutes," he directed, reaching over the mixing console to tweak a few faders, then leaned back into my massage, lazily flicking the play button.

The guitar started first, a low acoustic drone, and I winced. Things always sounded better in memory when you came into the studio fresh after a few days away. "You can't have it start like that - it's too much of a fucking cliché."

With a shrug, Thom punched a button, and the guitar dropped out, and all you could hear was the sound of breathing on the tape, whether his or mine, I couldn't tell. "How did that get in there?"

"No, leave it," I directed, deciding that that asthmatic wheeze had to be his. Yes, it was, because suddenly his voice swept in, low and tremulous, breathy and deep. "Bring in the backing vocals next," I directed.

"Are you sure?" Thom shook his head dubiously.

"Damn, I wish there was a way we could sample that rhythmic breathing you were doing and keep it going through the whole thing as part of the backing track..."

"Now _that_ is a cliché," laughed Thom.

"No, no, it fits. Bring up the guitar for the chorus here..."

"Drum track?"

"No, no, not yet," I directed, letting the song breath and swell, building towards its climax. "Just leave the 808 kick and hi-hat as the timekeeping beat. We don't want to bring the full kit in until the last minute, at the scathing finale. Get that breathing track quantised to the beat to provide some bass end, EQ the room ambience guitar tracks to be in the same frequency range as where you would expect the high-hat to be, keep building the vocal harmonies - in fact adding some step delay might work to double them in places. Don't slam in the drums and the bass immediately, but hold off at least until you sail into the upper register and I come in with the low harmony underneath you. It's got to be like an orgasm when it finally comes in."

Thom's muscles tensed right back up under my touch, but he nodded appreciatively. "I see what you're doing. A little bit formulaic, but..."

"Sometimes obvious is good," I shrugged. "If it's a good formula."

"You're right. Where the hell is that sampler?" he laughed. "This could get quite devilish, you know. You don't know about my secret dance music past that my bandmates try to curtail."

"Look who you're talking to," I giggled. " _Valley of the Charms_ was almost purely electro before Emma and Beth got their hands on it. Actually, it sounds kind of sparse. Have you got a 303 lying around here? I'll program in a basic version of the bassline, and just adjust the filter a bit to make it pop. Hah, if we want to really go acid, I can give you some proper squelch just as the song peaks."

"Oh god, that is such a cliche, but I love it!" He watched me closely as I tabbed through the patterns until I found a clear space and started to tap in the notes. "Where the hell did you learn to program a 303?"

"A long time ago, I used to have a job doing data entry at a medical lab. I had to program sequenced blood tests in on an ancient, ancient automated system that was a lot like this. It's amazing how the skills translated. It's just data entry of notes and timings."

"It's just unexpected, though. You just don't seem, to look at you, like the kind of person that would be interested in technology."

"What, because I'm blonde?"

"No, I mean... look at you. Vintage paisley, chelsea boots, Vox amp fetish..."

"I like psychedelic music, alright? Of any kind. I'm not a total vintage fetishist. I bet you anything if the Pink Floyd or the Velvet Underground were starting up today, they'd be dying to get their hands on the latest gear, like they experimented with wah-wah pedals and fuzzboxes back in the 60s."

"Actually, yeah. You got a point there. Like, Max/MSP is probably easily as psychedelic as a 4-track tape recorder was in 1968."

It was fairly easy to get the sample track going, synched in to the pre-existing click track that I'd played my guitar along with, but once the skeleton of the track was in place, deciding where and how to flesh it out was the hard part. A live bassline here, a 303 squelch there, a bit of hi-hat work, some step delay on the backing vocals. Shoulder to shoulder, the two of us hunched over the mixing console, slowly building the track around the vocals and the guitar.

"Come on, can we please get some wine?" pleaded Thom, turning his piercing blue eyes towards me. "It's after noon now..."

I sighed, my resolution wavering. "We need to have our wits about us. This is pretty precision work here."

"We'll have our wits about us," he promised, sticking his lower lip out in a hopelessly puppy dog expression. "It just helps me relax and not feel so damned tense."

"Fine," I finally conceded. "You go, I'll stay here and work on the track. OK?"

"Don't you dare turn your vocals down, though," he warned with a smile, seeing my hand twitching toward the fader.

Without him to look over my shoulder and scare me into embarrassment, I was able to experiment freely without fear of looking like a fool in front of him. Flicking through the memory banks of the sampler, I found a tinny, slightly out of tune piano and dropped it in, in a staccato one-note drone over the top, then started to chop up and rearrange the breathing into an approximation of a rhythm track. Deciding to completely overdo it, I played with his voice, changing the pitch and the timbre, decreasing and increasing the speed until I was surrounded by a multi-layered chorus of heavy breathing, in perfect synch with the beat of the song.

"My god," laughed a voice behind me. "It sounds like the viewing room of a peep show in here!"

I turned and grinned sheepishly at Thom, wondering how long he'd been standing there. "Oh, it's a joke," I apologised. "I wanted to see how silly I could get."

"No, I like it," he laughed. "Well, maybe not up so high in the mix, but it might be good in the background." He cocked his head carefully. "Was that piano there before?" I shook my head. "Where did you get the sound, then?"

"Oh, it was in the sampler," I shrugged.

"That's why it sounds so familiar. That's the _Reality Police_ piano. It's completely out of tune, but I love it," he noted, then pulled a jug of wine out of a paper bag. "Want some? Oh no," he teased. "You have to stay _focused_."

"Shut up and pour me a glass!"

"Glasses?" he stuttered, looking around desperately. "Oh, shit. Going to have to drink it out of the bottle. Hope you don't mind a bit of backwash."

"I've already _had_ some of your saliva," I shot back with an evil grin, kicking the rungs of his chair.

For a moment, he sat in silence, one eyebrow raised, his smile absolutely devilish, then he pried the cap off the bottle. "Screw-top bottle," he observed. "This is real quality stuff, just so you know. Do you want to do the honours?"

Taking the bottle from him, I smirked wildly, not taking my eyes from his as I raised the jug to my lips with both hands and took a huge swig. On an empty stomach, it gurgled slightly, but it was sweet and fruity, the taste taking me back to late night art school conversations and student parties.

We managed to get a fairly decent mix of the song onto minidisc, added two alternate mixes, and then degenerated into complete and utter silliness, trying to outdo each other with joke versions, dropping the guitar out and putting in huge techno back-beats and over the top acid squelches for added effect.

"No, no, cut that out," I laughed, pushing him bodily from the console, forgetting for a moment how intimidated and how in awe of him I was. The whole situation was easier to deal with after a few glasses of wine.

"No, no, we're recording this one," threatened Thom with a defiant grin.

"No you're not, because I've got the minidisc!" I affirmed, pressing the eject button and snatching the master out of the recorder, putting it away in a safe place in my rucksack before any drunken mishaps could befall it.

"I've got plenty more discs, though," giggled Thom, digging in a cupboard and pulling out a fresh one, unwrapping it from its plastic. "It's going down!"

"Oh, shit, we're out of wine," I observed sadly, letting the last few drops roll onto my tongue.

"No worries," chirped Thom. "I'll be right back..."

"Where are you going?" I asked worriedly, afraid that he might try to drive to town, but he stopped and dug in the back seat of the car, pulling out another jug of wine.

"Thom!" I admonished, slightly shocked, even through the giggly wine buzz.

"I bought it for tomorrow, but we might as well drink it now," he shrugged with a rather guilty expression. "Come on."

"Just a minute..." I requested with a tiny, childish voice, almost ashamed to ask. "Where's the bog?"

"There is none. Gotta go outside," he shrugged, gesturing with his head toward the field behind the make-shift studio.

"You've got to be joking!" I responded, aghast.

"No, come on," he laughed, taking me by the hand and pulling me outside again, pointing off to a row of trees. "That's what the trees are for."

If I hadn't been quite so tipsy, I never would have even contemplated it, but I stumbled off into the long grass and hiked up my dress. "Don't look!" I called back.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"I feel like I'm a little kid going camping again," I giggled, looking around for some leaves. "I don't know what it is about you - every time I'm with you I feel like I'm five years old again," I confessed.

"Well, it's a good feeling, isn't it?" chirped Thom, sticking his head out from behind a tree with an impish grin. "It's the best bit about being a pop star. Perpetual, prolonged childhood."

"I said not to look!" I shrieked, pulling down my dress and leaping backwards, tripping over a protruding tree branch and crashing drunkenly into a patch of tall ferns. "Ooh, gross, that was close."

"It's not like I'm not doing the same thing," shrugged Thom, emerging from behind his tree, buttoning his jeans.

"I don't want to know that!" I yelped, staring up at him as I realised that I was hopelessly tangled and hopelessly intoxicated.

"Why not? Us five year olds are obsessed with the scatological," he teased.

"No, it's not that." _I just want to keep you perfect and super-human in my mind - I don't want to know that you eat and you sleep and you urinate just like everyone else._

"Come on." Extending his hand, Thom helped me to my feet, grinning like a little boy, immensely pleased with himself for being so helpful.

"Ooh, my hero," I intoned, brushing myself off, and trying to laugh it off, though I realised I was completely serious. As I stood up, I suddenly remembered how much I had drunk, and on an empty stomach. My head was spinning delightfully, the breeze felt like a soft caress on my skin, and the slanting rays of the sun made the entire world look slightly magical. "Oh my god, I'm so drunk," I gasped, throwing my head back and laughing. "I love the world when it's like this."

Thom nodded, extending his arms and spinning around until he got dizzy, then stopped suddenly and grinned at me crookedly, teetering dangerously but remaining upright. "Me, too."

"Are you as pissed as I am?" I ventured worriedly as we trooped back into the studio, though not as worriedly as I probably should have been.

"I think so."

"I'm not getting back to Oxford in time to make that 6 o'clock train, am I?"

Digging in a box of assorted pedals and paraphernalia that was lying by the mixing board, Thom pulled out a magic 8-ball and shook it violently. "My sources say no."

"Please tell me there's a phone in here so I can call Damien," I whined. For some reason, I was not nearly as upset about missing the little get together with Alex and Em as I should have been. Right now, sitting around celebrating our engagement and saying goodbye before leaving on a world tour was the last thing I wanted to be doing. Sitting around with Thom, drunkenly avoiding the rest of my life seemed far more productive.

"Don't count on it!" giggled Thom, peering into the 8-ball.

"Thom! If I don't at least call him, he's going to kill me. He'll probably kill me anyway," I winced, mentally picturing the blustering tirade Damien would probably be preparing for me at that very moment, sitting alone in the Groucho, waiting for Alex and Em.

"Oh wait, my mobile is still in the car," he pointed out, tossing me the keys.

Tramping out to the car, I slithered into the front seat, found the phone and dialled Damien's number, praying I would get the service, but he picked up on about the second ring. Damn him and his call forwarding.

"Damien?" I stuttered, trying not to sound guilty.

"Katie? Hullo, dear, where are you?"

"Damien, there's been a slight delay. We're having problems with the mixing, and it looks like it's going to run over," I lied.

"Oh." He sounded genuinely disappointed. "Can you at least meet us for drinks afterwards, perhaps?"

"I don't know," I stuttered. "We're still working out a couple of different mixes. You know what kind of a perfectionist I am in the studio, and Thom's worse... I really want this to be perfect, you know?"

"No, of course I understand. I know what your work means to you, and I know how thrilled you are to be working with him," Damien sighed patiently.

Feeling like an absolute and complete lout, I stared at the faded leather of the dashboard, playing with the rabbit's foot that Thom had hanging from his rear view mirror. "Tell Alex and Em I'm really, _really_ sorry..." I didn't deserve Damien - he was too understanding, too patient. What the hell did he see in me when I was such an irresponsible little liar? My drunkenness seemed to be exaggerating my maudlin side, sending me spiralling into self loathing.

"I'll make your excuses to Em and Alex," shrugged Damien. "Give Thom my regards." He sounded so calm, so collected, so different from the angry, screaming tirade I'd been expecting. I did not deserve this. For a moment, my guilt got the better of me and I panicked. What if Damien wasn't getting upset because he simply didn't care? Damien bloody well should be upset, he had every _right_ to be upset - what other possible explanation could there be for his calmness? I simply couldn't accept the fact that I could possibly have a calm, trusting and supportive boyfriend. Boyfriend? Fiancé. It all seemed too odd, too foreign. This was not my life. My life was chaos and crisis and screaming matches with jealous lovers. That I knew how to handle. But this?

Climbing out of the car, I plodded back into the studio, my brow furrowed, only to be greeted by an utterly abominable blast of what could only be described as late 80's acid house, a ridiculously programmed drum pattern thumping from the 808, and bass squiggles whooping from a 303. "What have you done to my song?" I exclaimed, not sure whether to laugh or scream.

Thom cackled with laughter. "This is it - the is the final mix," he threatened, hitting a key on the sampler and spewing out a canned version of my voice, electronically treated to sound like a Detroit Soul belter.

Suddenly, I noticed the red record light flashing on the minidisc. "You are not recording this..."

"Yes, I am," he giggled. "Real blackmail material, this."

"Don't you dare!" I snarled, bolting over to the mixing board and bringing all the EQ's and filters back to their normal levels.

"Doesn't matter," snickered Thom, darting over to the minidisc and pulling it out of the recorder. "I've got it on tape. Now you have to do everything I say or this goes straight to the BBC."

"Give me that, you little..." I threatened, though I was laughing nearly as hard as he was. His good mood seemed to be infectious, making me forget my doubt and self loathing over the little white lie I had just told Damien. I lunged for him playfully, but he ducked out of the way.

"I might be little, but I'm quicker than you are," he shot back, dodging back and forth like a boxer on the balls of his feet. "Come on, come get it," he taunted, with the conceited air of a big brother lording it over his younger sibling.

"You little shit!" I hurled back, stopping to take another gulp of wine, then getting into the spirit of it. Suddenly I really did feel 10 years old again, chasing my older brother around the house to get my legos back. I charged towards him, and nearly got a grip on his shirt, but suddenly he was gone, slipping around me and bounding out the door, leaving a trail of giggles behind him. "That's it; you're dead!" I called after him, breaking into a trot to keep up with him. Although he had more mobility in the open grass, I had longer legs, and caught up with him easily, tackling him and bringing him to the ground in a shrieking pile of laughter.

Caught up in the moment, we started wrestling, arms and legs tangled together, grabbing and gripping at each other's limbs, with no other objective than the youthful exuberance of getting the upper hand. The minidisc spun off futilely into the bushes, but I would not let go of him, one arm around his waist, trying to flip him over onto his stomach, his knee between my legs, his other arm around my neck, pushing me down. 

He twisted around in my grasp, trying to get a better grip on me, his knees wrapped around my waist, his fingers around my wrists, spread-eagled in the long grass. I squirmed out of his grasp and found myself on top again, but his shirt had ridden up to his ribcage, my cheek against his bare stomach, the hair leading down towards the waistband of his trousers soft against my lips.

All of a sudden, it was no longer innocent. Before I knew what was happening, I was kissing the soft skin of his tummy. He let go of my wrists and moved his hands higher, touching my face and stroking my hair, before wandering lower, touching my breasts furtively, feeling for my hardening nipples, then back up to tangle his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck, pulling my head towards him as I fumbled with the zipper of his jeans. Swollen and stiff, he spilled out into the dappled sunlight, the air so warm and lazy that it seemed only natural to take him in my mouth, sucking gently and tentatively, my tongue circling the head of his penis lazily, He gasped, his chest heaving, his head rolling back against the earth, his eyes closing, his fingers tangled in my hair, clutching my head to his groin.

Time stood still; I barely dared to breathe as I moved faster, more urgently, taking his entire length into my mouth, his head against the back of my throat. For a moment I panicked, the muscles of my throat constricting reflexively around him, and he uttered a little half-cry. His body shuddered slightly, his organ quivered in my mouth and the taste of semen exploded across my tongue. It all happened so fast I barely had time to think, swallowing instinctively, then panting for breath. I could smell the deep pheromone musk of his hair, taste the sugar of the wine on his skin, felt his callused fingers on the back of my neck, but the rest of it didn't seem real.

"Oh god," he moaned softly, loosing his fingers from my hair and extending his arms. "Come here, Katie, come here. I want to hold you... Oh god..."

Moving slightly, I pulled myself up to face him, letting him wrap his arms and legs around me, crushing me in his embrace. "Oh, god," I echoed softly as he buried his face in my neck. _Oh god, what have I done?_

Nuzzling his face against my hair, his breaths slowed to their normal pace, then he pulled back, his eyes half closed, his lips swollen and slightly parted. His mouth found mine and we started to kiss, urgently, hungrily, my body twining with his instinctively, though my mind was rebelling. _No, this is wrong, stop, don't do this,_ my thoughts raced, but he was pulling me closer, pressing his hips against mine, wrapping his legs around me, his hands cupping my beasts. My hands were on his skin; I couldn't stop them from wandering up his back, up the inside of his shirt, dragging my fingernails carelessly along his spine.

Suddenly, he caught himself, propping himself up on one elbow, staring down at me with a curious little half smile that slowly faded to a frown as he noticed the anxiety and the fear spreading across my face. Bending over, he kissed me softly on the lips and once on each eyelid before sitting up and rubbing his face, massaging his temples and moaning softly. "I... I..."

"Just don't say anything!" I insisted shakily.

He shook his head and looked away, then cautiously extended one hand and ran it up the length of my thigh to my hip, pushing my dress out of the way and rubbing his thumb back and forth over the bone as if trying to get under the waistband of my knickers. My body responded to his touch, tiny flickers of arousal emanating out from his fingertips as his hand slipped between my legs, but I grit my teeth and rolled away from him.

"Are you sober enough to drive?" I asked in a very small voice.

He shook his head slowly and deliberately, his flirtatious mood suddenly draining out of him as if he had only just realised what had just happened. His face flickered, his expression changing from desire to embarrassment to fear within the space of a few moments. Without thinking what he was doing, he raised his hand to his face, and I could see my moisture shining on his fingertip as he sniffed it. "I'm... I'm..." His voice trailed off for a moment, then he forced out "I'm confused."

I nodded, shaking my head in an effort to try to clear it, but I was still giddy from the wine, inarticulately torn up inside.

"I don't know what came over me. This isn't who I am, this isn't who I'm about," he asserted. He sniffed his finger again, then thrust it into his mouth, his eyes closed, sucking as if savouring the taste of me. Then, just as suddenly, he pulled it out and wiped it dry on his jeans. "I don't know what I'm doing, I just know..."

"Please stop!" I insisted, fighting the urge to roll into a little ball and place my hands over my ears. Instead, I reached out and laid my hand against his cheek, but he took it and pressed his lips against my palm, rubbing the tip of his nose across my fingers. "Thom..."

"I don't know what to say," he whined.

"Please, just don't say anything!"

He nodded, but looked down at the ground with such a despondent expression that I could not help leaning forward and kissing him. Before I could stop myself, we had flopped back down onto the grass together, fingers twined in each others' hair, limbs entangled, not even kissing, but just holding each other, eyes closed, skin against skin, his heartbeat so close against mine, barely daring to talk for fear of destroying the fragile eggshell mood.

For a long time, I simply lay there, completely still, listening to the sound of his breathing, rubbing the soft hair behind his ears like a cat, trying to fight the rising panic. The giddy drunkenness of the early evening had worn off, leaving me tired and confused, worn out from the roller coaster ride of the past few days, wanting only to crawl off in a dark corner and hide, but knowing that in less than 12 hours I had to get on a plane and start 3 months of touring. The ground was warm beneath me, and I had no desire to move.

The sun had dipped behind the horizon and the stars had started to twinkle faintly in the dark blue velvet of the sky when he spoke again. "Are you awake?" he asked softly, his breath warm on my ear.

"Um-hmm," I murmured.

"Just thinking?" he probed.

"No; doing my best not to think," I confessed.

"I wish I could do that. Just turn it all off."

"I said I was trying, I didn't say I was successful," I laughed. He giggled and clutched me tighter. "It's getting cold, we should probably go inside." Mundane conversation seemed safer, somehow.

"I'm probably alright to drive, if you want to go home," he offered.

"Are you sure?" Shrugging off his embrace, I sat up, I peering down at him suspiciously, then deciding to risk it. "Well, it's not far to the train station, I suppose."

"I'll drive you all the way back to London, if you like," he offered.

"You don't have to..."

"I want to." His eyes flashed in the near dark. "Besides, you have your guitar, you can't take that on the train."

Giving up, I decided not to fight him, climbing to my feet and brushing the grass of my dress before heading back to the warm yellow light of the studio. He stood up awkwardly, blushing slightly as he zipped his fly, forcing the uncomfortable memory of what we'd just done back through my head. The silence between us was nearly unbearable after the easy, joking, good-natured conversation of the afternoon, but it seemed preferable to thinking about anything else.

It seemed neither of us were in the mood for conversation for much of the ride. I fiddled with the radio absent-mindedly while he stared unflinchingly at the road ahead of him for a seeming eternity. As we drove over London Bridge and pulled up Shad Thames, I peered curiously at the warehouse, relieved to see it dark except for the hall light.

"No lights," I sighed. "Either he's asleep, or, more likely, still at the Groucho with Alex and Em."

"The Groucho," Thom snorted derisively. Shaking his head, he peered at me through the half gloom of the car. "Is that really what you want out of your life? Drinking and taking cocaine at the fucking Groucho with Slur and Mirage? Do you really enjoy that? Is that really what you want to be remembered for?"

I whirled on him, amazed by the acidity behind his voice. "These are the only fucking lasting friends I've made in the past two years, and I intend on keeping them," I sputtered.

"But are they truly lasting? Or are they just using you until the next thrill comes along; a hipper party, a bigger star? I thought you were better than that. You could be so much more than that."

"You know, I've had just about enough out of you!" I exploded. "You like to wander around and play this sensitive artist bit or whatever, when you're one of the most grounded people I've ever met. I don't have a fucking family. I'm not in a band with my childhood fucking friends. I haven't had a fucking girlfriend for ten years or whatever. So pardon me if I take my community where I find it." Storming around to the back of the car, I practically ripped my guitar out of the back seat.

"Kate..." called Thom contritely from the front seat, leaning out of the window, but I ignored it. "Kate!" Climbing out of the car, he slammed the door shut and stamped over to me, grabbing me by the hand and forcing me to turn around. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me towards him, laying his head against my shoulder for a moment, before he pulled away. "I'll write to you," he sighed quickly before beating a hasty retreat back to his car and driving off back down Shad Thames with the sound of squealing tires.

 

Although I had been sneakingly disappointed that Damien had not been home when I returned to celebrate our last night together in the way in which I'd have liked, I knew I had no one but myself to blame. Without me to drag him home with promises of sex, he'd stayed at the Groucho until it closed, and the first I saw of him was the outline of his back the next morning, face down on the bed next to me, his breath stinking of stale cigarettes and expensive scotch. _Well, so much for a goodbye shag,_ I thought to myself guiltily, brushing my teeth compulsively to try to rinse my mouth of the taste of Thom's kiss. It was not sex, I kept telling myself. I did not sleep with him. Whatever it was, it did not count.

"You missed a great party," sighed Damien, padding into the bathroom behind me to relieve himself. God, we were already acting married, weren't we?

"I'm sure I did. I'm sorry," I stuttered.

"You did bring me a tape, though, didn't you?" he probed, stretching and making a face in the mirror before depositing a quick kiss on my bare shoulder.

"Yeah, I'll put it on. I wouldn't mind listening to it fresh this morning, myself," I offered, padding back out to the loft and popping the minidisc into the stereo. For a few moments, there was silence, as it clicked into place, then suddenly, the entire flat was filled with the electronic cooing of Thom's sampled breaths. Wracked with remorse, I was about to reach out and rip the disc from the player when I heard Damien's footsteps behind me.

"Is that you breathing?" he asked, swallowing a handful of aspirin with a tall glass of alka seltzer.

I shook my head. "Thom. But it was, erm, my idea," I added hesitantly.

Damien started to tap along with the music, the hint of a proud smile dusting his unshaven face. "This is lovely," he finally gushed, grinning up at me as I padded over to him and perched on the arm of his chair, wrapping my arm around his shoulders. "It's genuinely beautiful. I'm really glad you stayed to finish it, this was completely worth it."

"It's Thom," I shrugged self-effacingly. "He has the musical Midas Touch or something..." Damien's muscles suddenly tensed beneath me, causing little stabs of guilt to shoot through me. Tightening my grip on his shoulder, I leaned over and nuzzled his ear, running my tongue along the lobe, hoping for at least some return of affection to assuage my self-reproach. It hadn't been sex with Thom, it had been some momentary error, mistaking hero worship for libido. Damien was sex, and love, and permanence, and everything else. Thom was a mistake. A mistake I would never repeat.

"Oh, Kate..." he sighed, raising his hand to his temple, then turning to me, his huge blue eyes clouded with fatigue and hangover. "...I have such a headache..."

Climbing off the chair, I padded over to the stereo and switched the music off, snorting "Isn't that supposed to be the woman's line?"

"I'm sorry," he murmured into his alka seltzer, looking every bit as miserable as he claimed. "Give me a little while, I'll drive you to the airport," he offered as small consolation as I retreated to the bedroom to pack.

Throwing about a week's worth of clothes into my suitcase, I stared around the room at the unbelievable amount of junk I'd managed to accumulate in the few months I'd been living with Damien, then simply decided to leave it where it lay. If we were going to be married soon, he'd simply have to learn to deal with surrendering half his floorspace to my accumulated stuff.

We kissed goodbye in the airport lounge, clutching each other close and furtively groping each other in a secluded corner of the bar, but I could not shake the feeling that something was left unfinished between us.

"Promise me you'll call," he urged, taking my chin in his hands and peering into my eyes.

"You know I hate phones," I sighed. "Why can't you learn to use e-mail?"

He shrugged, handing me my flight bag. "I hate e-mail. It's so impersonal."

Airport goodbyes were so frustrating and so futile, I was beginning to truly hate them. There were so many things that I wanted to say, but the clinical setting seemed to rob me of what little eloquence I possessed. "I... I..." I stuttered, but the rest of the sentence refused to form on my lips. _I love you._ The words were so small they could not even begin to explain it all. "I'll miss you."

"You better. Go on, or you're going to miss your flight. Call me!"

"I will," I mouthed back as I trudged through the gate, placing my bag in the X-ray machine, then turning around to wave half-heartedly before stepping through the metal detector.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Charms start their US tour. Kate Gordon is unwell. Thom Eboracum is... persistent.

"Kate! How nice of you to join us," drawled Amy sarcastically as I stumbled into the waiting lounge at Kennedy Airport, cranky from a delayed and turbulent flight, and bristling from an encounter with a particularly condescending customs officer who'd insisted on nearly tearing apart the flight case of my Rickenbacker. "We have ten minutes to make our connecting flight to LA."

"Goddammit," I swore, following her meekly towards the next flight gate. Whose miserable idea had it been to start this tour on the west coast, instead of giving us a few days of familiar terrain in the first tier markets of the East Coast? "I guess I'll never find out how nice those First Class VIP lounge showers are supposed to be."

"We're not going first class," Amy informed me.

"We're what?" I snarled, ready to throw a proper rock star hissy fit. "And what do you mean _we_?"

"I had to downgrade your tickets to Tourist in order to make room on the budget for me to come along on this tour."

" _What?_ " I growled, snatching my ticket out of her hand and staring at it. _Tourist?_ Amy never accompanied us on domestic tours, as we were left in the capable hands of a driver and a road crew. What did we suddenly need a babysitter for?

"I have heard reports of the band's behaviour during the British tour, there have been some… doubts, and your management feels that it would be in your best interests to have someone along to… smooth the waters, shall we say," she chirped in her practiced smooth industry voice.

" _My_ best interests?" I growled, glaring at her.

Amy glanced around furtively before dropping the professional act. "Emma and Beth are at each other's throats again. The last major tour ended in shambles, and quite frankly, MVC asked me to go along to make sure it didn't happen again!" she finally confessed.

"That was a totally different situation," I whined.

"This is _not_ intended as a personal insult, Kate," she pointed out. "Though I'm beginning to feel like it's one towards _me_ that you don't want me along."

"No," I sighed, putting my hand to my head. "I've just spent 6 hours on a turbulent flight, and I'm feeling particularly well. I just need to get some sleep, that's all."

"Try to sleep on the plane," warned Amy, glancing at her itinerary. "We've got a radio interview at 7pm in LA tonight."

"Urrgghhh…" I moaned, slumping back against the hard-backed seat of the flight lounge.

"Oh, and I nearly forgot," she remembered, gathering up the magazines to stuff them in her bag. "Congratulations on your engagement…"

I started to stutter "How, how did you know…?" but she continued.

"But next time you have some important public announcement like that, could you possibly remember to tell me about it, so I don't have to find out about my own clients' personal lives in Time Magazine?"

"Time Magazine?" I stuttered, barely believing what I was hearing. Taking it from her, I paged through it until I came to the Milestones section.

 

> **ENGAGED**. DAMIEN HEARSE, 33, controversial British artist best known for suspending a bisected cow in formaldehyde, to Kate Gordon, 28, musician, daughter of British conceptual artist Richard Gordon and grand-daughter of South African writer Sylvia Sinclair; in London, over the weekend. It is his second marriage, her first.

 

I blinked, staring at the type for a few moments to get over the shock of seeing my name in such an esteemed and mainstream magazine as Time, then re-read the last sentence several times to make sure that I was not mistaken. _Second_ marriage? Damien had never even mentioned an ex-wife. Sudden paranoia gripped me as I wondered how I could possibly marry a man who had never even bothered telling me about his former lovers. No, not even lovers. Former wife. Bending over, I placed my head in my hands and started to massage my temples.

Trying to ignore the familiar squabbling among my bandmates, I surrendered my precious window seat simply to keep Beth and Emma separated, then tried unsuccessfully to nap in the cramped middle seat. By the time I reached LA, my pressure headache had broadened into an unavoidable migraine, and I was feeling distinctly ill. As the airplane descended, I swallowed time and again, but my ears would not pop, and I could not shake the distinct feeling that my head was still somewhere a few thousand feet above the continent, even when we were safely on the ground. Copping a few aspirins off Amy, I swigged down a cup of coffee and tried to bluff my way through the interview, for once grateful of Beth's overbearing habit of monopolizing interviews, as it meant that I barely had to say a word.

Well after midnight, California time, I only barely made it back to the hotel before collapsing into my bed, not even bothering to take off my shoes before succumbing to jet lag and exhaustion.

"Come on, Kate, rise and shine," chirped Amy, before my body even had a chance to reconcile itself to the idea of being asleep.

"You're joking, right?" I croaked, my voice hoarse, and my head pounding. Either I was coming down with something, or I was simply allergic to LA, and the lack of sleep was certainly not helping matters.

"Are you alright? You don't look so good," observed Amy, coming over and peering at me concernedly. "I'll try to get you some vitamin pills with breakfast. Now hurry up and shower before our breakfast meeting with the head of…"

"You fucking bitch! Give me that or I'll…" Beth's voice floated through the door that joined the two hotel rooms.

"Pardon me a moment, must go separate the children," she muttered from between the clenched teeth of a forced smile.

I felt slightly better after breakfast, smiling and faking my way through a meeting with some important record company type or other, though halfway through the afternoon my head was pounding again, and I was desperate for sleep. The only other time I'd ever felt this awful in the morning was when… No, I didn't even want to think about that. Although I felt distinctly queasy, this could _not_ be morning sickness. Being pregnant again was the last thing I wanted to face, so I simply pushed the thought out of my mind, believing I could mentally psych myself into being well again.

Distracted by her other charges, Amy had never quite managed to find me vitamins, so I made do with some dodgy looking ginseng tablets from a Korean deli, though they only seemed to have the effect of making me feel vaguely speedy and decidedly queasy. Tanked up on coffee, I somehow managed to make my way through soundcheck, then found my way backstage and commandeered a mouldy old sofa in the dressing room for a much-needed nap.

"Kate!" snapped a voice beside my head, and I slowly tried to open my eyes, blinking against the light. "Come on, we're on in ten minutes!"

"What?!" How had I managed to sleep through the entire opening band? Never mind the opening band - I'd managed to sleep through dinner, and I hadn't had a thing to eat since breakfast except the ginseng tablets which were now tearing the lining of my stomach out. Rubbing my eyes, I shook my head, trying to shake off the lingering tendrils of sleep. My head still felt strangely swollen, but I trooped along behind Maddie, following her out onto the stage with an almost euphoric floating feeling.

For a perfect hour and a half, the world was a beautiful place again. Staring out into the rows of appreciative faces, surging forward, nodding their heads in time to the music, I remembered how much I loved what I did. After an awkward but brief initial period of shock, the new material was going over incredibly well, driving the audience into a frenzy. Borne up on a wave of elation, I felt myself swept along in the rush of adrenaline, ignoring the protestations of my body, to follow the others to the aftershow party. Someone pressed a drink into my hand and I forgot everything else except the giddy rush of being in an unfamiliar city, surrounded by friendly strangers telling me how wonderful I was.

When I awoke, the pressure in my head was almost unbearable. Someone was shaking me, and it was the pressure I felt, before I could hear a voice calling my name.

"Kate!" repeated the voice, indistinct, muffled in my head, so I opened my eyes and stared without comprehension at the figure of Amy. "Did you not hear your wake-up call?" I shook my head slowly, coughing fitfully, cursing the smoky air of the nightclub and wondering why everything sounded like it was filtered through a thick layer of cotton wool. "You've got ten minutes till checkout!"

Ten minutes? Did I have time for a shower? Thinking about the close quarters of the tourbus, I decided to risk it, choking down the queasy hunger in the pit of my stomach as I walked through the water. My head felt decidedly odd, but I didn't have time to think about that now. Shuffling out onto the pavement, I looked around for the rest of the band and found them arguing over which café to go to for breakfast or lunch.

Following them into the restaurant, I found my seat, slumped back in the chair and demanded "Does anyone have any aspirin?"

"I've got some," volunteered Emma, digging in her gig bag and then tossing the bottle over. "Why, do you have a headache?"

"My ear feels funny," I explained, shaking my head like a puppy, though I still couldn't get rid of the odd unbalanced sensation.

"See, Emma, your guitar amps are up too loud - they're giving us all earaches," flipped back Beth snidely, looking over the menu.

"They have to be loud, so I can hear them over your fucking ego," tossed back Emma without missing a beat.

"Emma!" warned Amy, turning around in her seat with a stern schoolteacher expression. "Are you OK, Kate?"

"I don't know. Yeah, I'm fine. My ear popped funnily during a pocket of turbulence on the way over from England, and it's never quite popped back," I started to explain, but Emma cut me off.

"I'll turn down my fucking amps when you let anyone else get a word in edgewise during a fucking interview!"

Gulping down my aspirin with a cup of cold coffee, I cowered down in my seat until I noticed a row of computers along the back wall. Was this a web café? Why, yes it was. Deciding to ignore the rest of my band, I wandered over to the counter and plonked down the dollar that bought me half an hour of internet time; just enough to check my neglected e-mail. Had it really been three days since I'd last looked at it? I could barely believe that I'd lasted that long. Staring at the screen as Hotmail loaded, I suddenly remembered Damien and felt a twinge of guilt at our awkward parting. Before I even attempted to check my mail, I stared at the compose screen, trying to think of how to put it all into words.

> From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
>  To: MadCow@hotmail.com 
> 
> Damien...  
>  I love you. I miss you.  
>  K

After typing exactly the same words in different orders half a dozen times, I finally gave up on attempting to be eloquent, and gave in to my curiosity, sending the mail as it was and checking my incoming mail.

> From: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
>  To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk 
> 
> Kate, are you online?  
>  T.

_____________________

> From: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
>  To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk 
> 
> Kate, are you there? Please write me as soon as you get this, it's important.  
>  Thom 

____________________

> From: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
>  To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk 
> 
> WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!
> 
> Write me. PLEASE.
> 
> Thom

____________________

> From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
>  To: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk 
> 
> _> WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!_  
>  _>_  
>  _> Write me. PLEASE._
> 
> Bloody hell, Thom, I'm on fucking tour, and I haven't been able to even get two seconds to myself in three days.
> 
> What the hell do you want?

____________________

> From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
>  To: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk 
> 
> I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap. Things are not going well over here. What's the matter?
> 
> Kate

 

I waited around online for a few more minutes, then gave up, hearing my bandmates making plans to leave. I followed them out to the curb then curled up in a corner of the tourbus with a book. By the time I got back to the UK, I fully intended on being able to beat Damien at any argument, so I planned on starting with the complete illustrated history of Western Art, working my way through the Foucault reader and rounding it all off with some Noam Chomsky for good measure.

But as I read, the words and pictures seemed to float before my eyes, and I found myself reading and re-reading the sentences until I no longer knew where I was in the text. Closing my eyes, I tried to rub my temples, ignoring the pounding in my head. Squinting, I tried to look out the window, but the scenery sliding by rippled and shimmered like the Salvador Dali painting I'd just been admiring.

"Kate, are you alright?" asked Maddie as I staggered past her to the bathroom.

"I'm fine," I insisted resolutely. "I just forgot to eat breakfast this morning. Has anyone got any food?"

"You should have eaten while you were at the café, instead of wasting your time on that computer," warned Beth.

Out of nowhere, Maddie managed to produce a granola bar, but no sooner had I bolted it down than I went running for the toilet to throw it up again. _That's it; I'm pregnant again_ , flashed through my head uncontrollably, but I beat it back down. I couldn't be - I was on the Pill. Bloody hell, it would be fitting if I was. That said, given the news of Damien's and my engagement, I could just see Thom's face now, suppressing a giggle at the idea of him holding a shotgun to my head to drag me _away_ from the altar. No, it was just one of those miserable tour bugs that struck every travelling musician from time to time; nothing to get excited about.

I managed to get through the show that night with the help of half a bottle of whisky and a few hits from a joint that some friendly San Francisco native had been kind enough to throw onstage. With a few magical puffs, the pressure in my head seemed to disappear, my headache forgotten enough to mix with the assorted local VIPs and giddy fans that crowded the requisite aftershow party.

When I awoke the next morning, I could barely breathe, cursing my stupidity and foolhardiness as I crawled from my bed, my whole chest racked with violent, hacking coughs. As I stood up, and my head started to swim, I suddenly realized that although the pressure in my head had abated somewhat, I was now completely deaf in my left ear. _Tour bug, just a tour bug,_ I told myself to assuage the rising panic. Before dragging myself to the tour bus, I checked my e-mail on a computer in the hotel lobby, found neither frantic messages from Thom, nor a reply from Damien, so I returned to the tour bus. Curled up in a corner, with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders I lapsed straight back into a deep sleep.

The cold woke me from a feverish dream, as I clutched the blanket closer, shivering in the chill. "Jesus Christ, Amy, turn down the fucking AC, it's below zero in here," I muttered.

"Are you smoking crack?" snorted Emma, popping her head over the top of the seat. "We haven't had the AC on in 50 miles to conserve gas. Whoa, you don't look so good, Kate."

"I'm fine!" I barked, clutching the blanket closer. _I was not pregnant, there was no fucking way I could be pregnant again, I was fine!_

By the time we pulled into Portland, Oregon, I was shaking uncontrollably, the deafness in my ear replaced by a dull roar like the sound of an ocean ebbing and flowing. With some difficulty, I realized it was the sound of my own blood, coursing through my veins. Shrugging off the concerns of my bandmates, I picked up my bass case and stumbled through into the venue, clutching on to anything in sight to avoid falling over. The place was already crawling with assorted venue flunkies and sound men, so I did not jump when I heard someone call my name behind me.

"Kate! Hi!" I turned to confront a bobbing blond head grinning shyly at me from under a layer of thick black eyeliner.

I stared at him for quite some time before the realization of who was speaking penetrated my befuddled brain. "Peter?"

"My girlfriend and I decided to come out early to see if you wanted to come to dinner with us before the show," he offered, in a conciliatory tone that made it obvious he was attempting to extend a white flag of truce for whatever had transpired between us the previous autumn. Staring past him, I suddenly noticed a small, pretty blond girl with a mischevious smile at his side. "Have you met my partner…"

He never got a chance to finish his sentence, for as I turned my head to greet his new girlfriend, there was a huge rushing sound in my dead ear. The two of them seemed to be retreating away from me as if down the wrong end of a telescope, then my entire sight went slowly grey, then failed completely, and I crumpled in a heap on the floor of the venue.

 

Colours and shapes slowly started to return. I heard vague noises around me; people whispering, background music in the club, Amy screaming at the concert promoter.

"I don't care how much money either of us stands to lose in this deal, she is not going on stage until I get her to a doctor…" The promoter muttered something too low for me to hear, and she exploded. "No, it is not fucking drugs! Drugs are the last thing she needs right now! Get me a fucking doctor!… No! Do you understand? No doctor, no fucking show!"

"Hey, the ambulance is here," someone called from further off. Suddenly, I realized I was still lying on the floor of the venue, and the vague colors and shapes were slowly starting to materialize into people, crowded around me.

"Back off, give her some space!" barked Amy.

"I'm fine!" I tried to protest, but as soon as I tried to climb to my feet, my legs gave out. Someone tried to grab me to prevent me from my falling, and I instinctively lashed out, the memory of being surrounded and attacked by mobs of Jeremy's fans too fresh in my head. "Don't touch me, get the fuck away from me!" I snarled, disoriented and frightened. Amy was standing practically on top of me, her mouth moving, but I couldn't hear anything that was coming out. "What are you saying?" I demanded, but, unable to hear anything, it came out garbled. "What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Don't fucking touch me!" Panic-struck, I lashed out, but someone seized my arms, restraining me as they lifted me onto a stretcher. The motion was too much for me, my head spun, and the black water sucked me back in.

 

"Kate, are you sure you're OK to go on?" asked Amy, her eyes boring into mine as I perched on the edge of the examining table.

"I'm fine... now," I assured her, feeling wonderfully woozy from whatever had been in the injection the doctor had just given me.

"I've given her a little something to kill the pain," warned the doctor with a smile that seemed a little too unctuous to trust, slowly writing out prescriptions in a spidery hand. "Get these filled at the dispensary down the corridor - take this one twice daily, this one every morning, and this one whenever you feel a little... _tense_ …"

Something in his tone made me step back, blinking cautiously, despite the numbness slowly spreading through my head. "What are they?" I ventured carefully.

"Whatever they are, you just take them," directed Amy in her fiercest maternal tone. Amy was always a big one for authority figures. "You heard what the doctor said - You were running a dangerously high fever - and you still feel a bit hot to me. You've had an ear infection festering, possibly for weeks. If he hadn't drained it, you could have lost your hearing! Are you sure that you are going to be OK to go on tonight?"

"She'll be _fine_ ," assured the doctor with a crooked smile and a chilling tone as he handed me a paper cup of water and a pair of tiny, light yellow pills.

"Not to pressure you or anything, but the promoter is threatening to sue us for breach of contract if the band doesn't play," she warned, bending down to look at me eye to eye. "I'm not scared of this guy - he can bluster all he likes and I'm not budging - so if you have the slightest doubt that…" Despite her tough words, I could see the fear in her face, though she covered it quickly with concern.

"I can do the show," I assured her, suddenly feeling incredibly calm, incredibly relaxed and absolutely in control of everything.

I floated through the show, barely aware of my surroundings, thankful that I knew the material well enough to play it in my sleep, as I pretty much was sleeping, as far as my memories of the show went. The little yellow pills seemed to make me alert and excitable enough to get through a show, but two of the pink pills and I was dead to the world. Were antibiotics supposed to have this kind of effect on your head? Oh well, I didn't care so long as they fucking worked. Another anonymous hotel and another hellish busride, and we landed in Seattle, the throbbing sensation in my head gone, replaced by an implausibly clear sense of calm.

Being onstage hardly seemed real; the faces in the audience seemed immobile, like painted stage scenery. Nine months of enforced sobriety had dulled my memory of the pharmaceutical cornucopia I'd once consumed when I'd been with Jeremy Kane, but this was one of the best highs I'd ever experienced, and what's more, it was completely legal, in fact, doctor recommended. Nothing bothered me, nothing seemed to faze me, not the commonplace stresses of touring, not the constant sniping back and forth between Emma and Beth, not even the completely unexpected face that showed up without warning backstage after the Seattle gig.

"Thom!" I grinned despite myself, the pleasure of seeing him far outweighing the shock and the doubt as to the circumstances of his arrival. All I knew was that in the sea of endless strangers and the circle of familiar faces that had become a minefield of resentments, his was a face that seemed completely neutral. Loping over to him, I eyed him tentatively for a moment, then extended my arms in a wholeheartedly innocent gesture of greeting. Before I could think what was happening, he was clutching me close, fitting perfectly against me. His upturned face, his swollen lips loomed close, and suddenly we were kissing, arms and lips and legs entwined, his hands clasped in the small of my back, pulling me towards him.

"What are you doing here?" I finally stuttered, it seemed like hours later, tearing my mouth away from his, drawing back slightly and staring down at him, my face somehow failing to register the shock and confusion I couldn't quite get myself to feel. His kiss had felt so good, so natural, that I had somehow failed to notice how out of place his arrival had seemed, thousands of miles away from where he was supposed to be.

He looked around furtively, as if noticing for the first time that we were surrounded by a crowds of people. "Can we go somewhere private?"

I nodded, glancing around to make sure that my bandmates were otherwise engaged before taking him by the hand and pulling him after me, dodging out through the backstage door before the kids currently disgorging from the front of the theatre could make their way around to the back. Feeling slightly shifty, I lead him up onto our tourbus.

Pulling a bottle of juice out of the fridge, I flopped back on the seat in the back lounge, staring up at him expectantly, still not quite believing that he really was here. Hadn't he just sent me e-mail this morning? No, I realised with a start; that was days ago. So that explained the mysterious bandwidth silence. Helping himself to a bottle of beer (Emma's beer, god help us all) he swallowed a huge gulp of it, then settled down on the seat beside me, tentatively reaching out to touch me, running an exploratory finger down my forearm. Away from the darkened, cramped environment of the club, exposed in the bright and pristine fluorescent light of the tourbus, he suddenly seemed shy and timid again. I stared at him, reacquainting myself with the tousled red thornbush of his hair, the unnerving blue of his crooked stare. I had kissed those lips, had laid my cheek against that stomach, my lips had… I pushed the thought out of my mind, trying to concentrate on figuring a way out of the situation. Nothing had happened, nothing was going to happen.

"Bloody hell, I hope no one saw us," I finally exhaled, digging in my bag for the lovely pink pills that made everything go away.

"Why?" Conflicting emotions flickered across his face as he watched me. "What are those?" he suddenly demanded, changing the subject.

"Antibiotics. I had an ear infection," I shrugged defensively. "Tour bug. You know how it is."

"I'm sorry," he muttered, then looked around the back lounge of the tourbus as if noticing for the first time where he was. "It's so bizarre. It's like any other ordinary room until you open the curtains and notice that you are whizzing by at 70 miles per hour." I remained quiet, letting him fill the space with his nervously cracking voice. "Anything you could possibly humanly need crushed into this little rectangular space. It's like having your own personal airplane or something."

"I wish we could afford an airplane," I laughed. "But somehow I don't think we're quite at that level yet."

"We are. We got a Lear Jet the last time out. President of MVC himself signed for it," Thom cackled as if he found this immensely amusing, then grew quietly serious again. "I like tour busses, though, in a way I don't like airplanes. They're like little wombs, aren't they? Someone always coming round to take care of your every need. I like being taken care of. Looked after. You don't get looked after when you're not on a bus or in an airplane or in a studio or in a nice controlled environment like this."

I stared at him calmly, evenly, trying to pull away and distance myself from him physically, trying to locate my reason in the still, turgid pool that my mind had become. "You still haven't told me what you're doing here," I pointed out.

He took a deep breath, then paused for a long time, the silence loaded with unspoken meaning. "I think I'm in love with you."

From the flat, dead tone of his voice, I could tell he was lying, but I took the news as calmly and rationally as I'd taken everything else in the bizarre event of his arrival. "What do you mean, you think? Either you are or you aren't," I shrugged, taking the easy way out and contradicting the manner in which the statement was presented, rather than the sentiment itself.

That stopped him for a moment, sucking at the bottle of Guinness as if it were a pacifier. "I _am_ in love with you. I mean, I _have_ to be." His voice was ragged as if he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince me. "Because I wouldn't fuck things up so badly… I wouldn't throw my fucking _life_ away over a stupid fucking mistake, would I?"

"What are you talking about?' I asked in a completely rational voice, though the panic was rising faster than my bloodstream could absorb whatever chemical it was that was protecting me from my emotions.

"She threw me out, Kate." His voice was stretched to the point of cracking. "My girlfriend. She threw me out. I told her what happened between us, and she threw me out."

"Well, why the fuck did you tell her?' I exploded. How stupid was he? It hadn't even been sex; it had been a stupid, drunken moment. A mistake. A single, drunken, erasable mistake. As far as my life was concerned, it had never happened.

"I don't know," he cowered, practically curling up into a ball, drawing his legs up onto the seat and wrapping his arms around his knees. "I've always believed in absolute and complete honesty, if nothing else. I might be a fucking unpleasant, difficult bastard, but I'm fucking honest, alright?" He was babbling, really, the words spilling out of his mouth without coherent order or sense. At that moment, crumpled in on himself, his blue eyes helpless and vulnerable, his cowlick sticking directly up in the air, he looked exactly like a child, utterly alone in the huge, scary, adult world. 

I stared desperately around the room, fighting conflicting urges to either get up and run away, as far and as fast as I could, tell him it was all a horrible misunderstanding, and I just wanted him to go away, or take him in my arms, kiss away his tears and tell him everything was going to be alright. What were we doing here? How did we get here? What the hell had I done? Was this my fault? Casting my mind back, I tried to remember that hazy, drunken afternoon out in Oxford, but blame seemed such a trivial concern in the face of his abject misery. 

"At this moment, I've lost everything, Kate. I don't know what the hell to do with myself without my work. The entire time I was on the road, loathing it, all I could think about was how much I wanted to get home and have time off, and now I have it, I don't know what the hell to do with it," he continued, twisting his spidery fingers in his hair as if meaning to pull it out by the roots. "The last time I saw you, you accused me of faking it all, pretending to be something I wasn't…"

"Thom, I didn't mean…" I interrupted, but the unintentional insult had obviously rankled and festered.

"Well, I don't have any of it any more!" he spat. "It's gone! I've smashed it to fucking pieces, I've fucking thrown it all away, and I've thrown it away because of…" He managed to stop himself before finishing the sentence, but he didn't have to; the damage had already been done. _I've thrown it all away because of you._

For a moment, I wavered, wracked with guilt, but as I stared at him, helpless and crushed, some sort of strange maternal urge seemed to kick in. After all the time I'd spend worrying about what a terrible parent I would be, the first time I'd seen Ian, tiny and perfect and newborn, I'd had no other urge than to take him in my arms and shelter him in my embrace. When I looked at Thom, his brow furrowed and his eyes troubled, skin so pale he looked as if he were made out of butter, I felt almost exactly the same urge. Loneliness and loss overcame me like a sudden wave, and all I wanted was someone to cling to, wrapping my arms around and holding on like a drowning rat in a shipwreck.

_Don't look at me, please don't look at me, and if you touch me I will surely fall apart._ Turning his eyes upon me like a searchlight, Thom gazed at me with a look of the utter existential dread of loneliness, then extended a tentative hand and softly touched my cheek. Somehow the two of us fell together, as I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him into my embrace, stroking his hair, kissing his eyelids, the top of his head, his hands, touching him, murmuring softly that everything was going to be fine, as much to quell the rising panic in the pit of my stomach as to reassure him.

"Everything is just falling to pieces," he murmured, turning his face towards me, his cheekbones huge and moonlike in the dim light. "It just feels like there's no rhyme or reason in anything any more. It all feels so senseless and random."

"No, nothing ever happens for _no_ reason," I assured him, wracked with guilt. Why the hell was he here? Why was it me he had picked to turn to for help at this moment, when it was me that had ripped his life apart? Or maybe it was _because_ I was the cause of it all.

"I just feel so out of control, like nothing makes any sense any more. There's no fucking direction in my life, I feel lost and alone in the universe," he burbled, the words spilling uncontrollably out of his mouth. "The only thing that I know is that when I'm with you, I don't feel that way. When I'm with you, I feel like a child again, I feel safe and secure. I feel like there's a god again, like there's someone or something in control, though I know rationally there's not."

"Dalmatians," I interrupted urgently, nodding and grinning like a fool, just wanting to make him stop, make him see that everything would be alright if he would just shut up.

"What?!" he sputtered, his face twisting in utter lack of comprehension.

"Dalmatians. Explain the existence of spotted fucking dogs otherwise. I don't know what I believe in, but I know that something has to be in control. Nothing like that could have possibly evolved naturally. There's something or someone in control." 

He stared at me, his eyes bulging out of his head as if not sure whether to burst out laughing or reach out and slap me. "Dalmations were bred. By humans. That's why they have spots."

"But there must be something in the original animal, before the controlled breeding, to produce spots. And why would dogs needs spots?"

"Camouflage," Thom insisted. "Like dappled horses."

"But dogs are predators. Why would they need dappled camouflage? And it doesn't hide them at all. Have you ever seen a Dalmation running around? They stick out like a sore thumb. There's nothing more visible!"

Thom crumpled up his face, clearly annoyed that I was beating him in the argument, and started to rock back and forth in his seat. "What the fuck does this have to do with anything?"

"Well that's how I can sleep at night, because whatever divine intelligence it was that came up with Dalmatians has got to have a sense of humour."

Screwing up his eyes, he put his hands over his ears and started to moan loudly. "Stop it, just stop it!"

"It's true!" I insisted. "Think about it! It's got to be true. There's no natural reason on earth for there to be spotted dogs."

Although he was still moaning, at least he was smiling now, though he was covering his face with his hands. "No, stop. Stop with the Dalmatians! Stop it!"

"You know I'm telling the truth. This is why I can never be an atheist. An agnostic, sure, sometimes, in desperate moments, because I'm not sure I want to know why God would put spots on a dog, but…"

"Cut it out, just cut it out!" he was laughing out loud now, reaching out and trying to put his hand over my mouth to stop me from talking, but I pushed it away, holding his hands in place. His mouth found mine, and we started to kiss, his lips like huge, succulent overripe fruit against mine, his arms around my waist, hands searching, fingers entwined in the fabric of my dress. A tiny voice in the back of my mind protested how wrong it was, but somehow I chose not to hear. Rising to my feet, I pulled Thom after me, leading him towards the curtained bunk-bed where I slept.

Kicking off his shoes and crawling on all fours, he followed me into cramped compartment, drawing the curtain behind him, shutting out the light. For a moment, everything went dark, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, then, suddenly he was next to me, his mouth searching for mine, lips against my cheeks, moving lower, nibbling across my jaw, sending a shiver down my spine as his teeth moved down my neck. My knees opened instinctually, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him, clawing at his belt and pushing his baggy pants off his slight hips. A brief struggle with the soft fabric of my dress, and he had lifted it up, over my head, pushing my bra out of the way and hungrily sucking my nipple into his mouth, running his tongue back and forth until it rose to meet him.

I shifted uncomfortably, trying to stretch out, but the bed was simply not designed to fit two people, even with such a slight partner. Sensing my discomfort, he pulled back and tried to climb on top of me, but a moment later, there was a distinct thump of skull hitting wood and a yelp from Thom. "Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered, slumping down next to me, rubbing his head.

"I thought you were an atheist," I teased him, bending over to kiss him softly, and wondering how I had ever managed to do this with Jeremy. Then again, I'd always had the far roomier and more comfortable top bunk on that tour, though on this time out, I'd lost the coin flip against Emma. "Come here, but slide over; don't try to stand up." The soft sound of his breathing drew closer as he sort of rolled on top of me, then I saw his face looming closer in the gloom, his bright blue eyes clearly visible. "You should know how to do this by now, surely."

"It always looks easier in the movies," he quipped, his eyes crinkling into a smile as he leaned down to kiss me. Raising himself on his elbows, he grinned down at me as he pushed his way between my legs, rubbing himself against me, bending down to kiss my breasts, then closing his eyes in agonised bliss as he worked his way inside me.

"Don't know much about tourbus sex, do you?" I quipped, then immediately regretted the comment.

"Never had the opportunity to know," he muttered, finally pushing inside me.

I winced and suppressed a slight cry, then arched my back, rising to meet his body. His eyes closed and his mouth open, he was lost to his own pleasure, twining his fingers in my hair, and burying his face between my breasts as he started to thrust blindly, quickening his pace with his shallow panting. Caught by surprise, I tried to keep up, but I was still unable to find a comfortable position in the tiny bed. Not knowing what else to do with my limbs, I tried to raise my legs, but a brief argument with the ceiling above us, and the two of us fell back against the bed, laughing in frustration.

"I think the bed is trying to tell us something," sighed Thom in a resigned tone, slumping against me, his hips still twitching as he tried to maintain his rhythm, though in the tiny space, he seemed unable to get the momentum that he desired.

I laughed with him, grateful that he was viewing the entire situation with amusement, though I felt embarrassed, almost mortified, my mind willing but the flesh weak. Damn it, if I were six inches shorter, or the bed six inches longer… "Hang on a minute, damn this thing," I swore, shifting again, swinging my legs up and around him, bracing my feet against the roof rather than fighting it, bent over double, like a contortionist.

"Oh, I like this," observed Thom with a satisfied grunt, raising himself up onto his elbows and redoubling his efforts, but, feeling slightly awkward and ashamed at the size of my body beside his, my mood was gone and I felt empty and hollow, not even trying to keep up with him, but merely trying to hang on. Panting heavily, he moaned softly, then raised himself as high as the low ceiling would allow, stiffening, his entire body shaking slightly as his face twisted into a grimace. I wanted to respond, wanted to melt beneath him and quiver uncontrollably, but the entire scenario felt so wrong. For a few moments, he froze, catching his breath, then he slumped back against me, kissing my face again and again. 

"Oh, god… did you?" he asked worriedly, his brow wrinkling. The man must simply have enjoyed worrying, if not even the afterglow of orgasm could distract him more than momentarily.

I briefly considered lying, then shook my head slowly. "It's not important," I assured him with less than convincing conviction, wrapping my hand around the back of his head and clutching him close, pressing his cheek against mine, running my lips back and forth across the soft skin of his ear. 

_There was nothing wrong; it wasn't me,_ I tried to console myself. The first time you had sex with someone, it was always awkward, especially under such bizarre and cramped circumstances, terrified that any moment, someone would come tramping onto the bus in search of us. What did any of it matter? I loved him. Of course I loved him. My fucking hero, the man whose words had guided me through my darkest moments, and he was lying in bed next to me, our limbs entwined, his sticky breath hot in my ear. I should be overjoyed, flushed with ecstasy, and panting with uncontrollable passion, not lying here, worrying about my prowess as a lover. Pulling him even closer, I hugged him tightly until I was almost afraid I would break him. This confused, flighty, head-churning sensation was perfectly normal. Butterflies in the stomach, that was what they called it, wasn't it? I'd felt this way when I first started dating Damien, and now I was utterly, unquestionably in love with…

Oh god. _Damien_.

No, I didn't even want to think about that right now. Pushing the thought of him out of my mind, I kissed Thom tenderly and let him slide down off me, wrapping my arm around his stomach, resting my head against the bony crook of his arm and sinking into sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You've probably worked out that Kate Gordon and Thom Eboracum aren't very good for one another and their relationship is not the healthiest of couples. As The Charms tour wends its way across the vast distances of the West of America, their affair turns from dysfunctional to abusive. Consider this a content warning, without specific spoilers.

I awoke with my face pressed between Thom's sharp shoulder bones, my arm clamped tightly around his waist, and a vague sense of unease churning through my mind. I should feel guilty, horribly guilty, but some reason there was only a vague hole where the remorse should be, as if it had never really happened. My whole life seemed unreal at the moment, and grew even more so as I dug in the wall pockets of the bed, located my purse and dry swallowed another set of pills. When I got down to it, I actually felt more guilty about not feeling guilty than I did about sleeping with Thom in the first place. He stirred slightly, and sighed, so I tightened my grip around his waist and nuzzled my nose against his back, kissing his spine. Raising myself on one elbow, I stared down at his sleeping face, only to realise that he was awake, his eyes open, and staring blankly ahead of him, at the wall of the bus.

"Thom?" I whispered, bending down to kiss his cheek.

He ventured a smile, his gaze snapping back into focus and fixing onto my face. "Good morning."

"I don't think it's morning yet. You're still jet lagged," I laughed softly, afraid to raise my voice for fear of waking my bandmates. The bus was in motion; I could feel the soft purr of the engine somewhere beneath us.

"It's not natural, is it? Whipping around the earth like this, in little metal tubes. It's nature's way of telling us not to fuck with her, jet lag. Slow down, come back to earth, stay wherever your roots are, deep in the earth," he mused, tracing a pattern on my forearm with his finger.

"What if you don't have roots?" I asked quietly. What if every time you even try to put down roots, they are torn away from you by circumstances beyond your control?

He smiled. "You once told me that you took community where you found it..." I winced, remembering the circumstances of the quote, but he let the rest of sentence drop, his voice sliding away into a contented sigh as I settled back down beside him, rubbing my nose slowly back and forth across his spine. "Mmm. I love it when you hold me..." I moved my hand lower, across the slightly fuzzy skin of his belly, and he arched his back slightly, but showed no other sign of arousal. Perhaps it wasn't even sex that he wanted, but simply a warm body wrapped around him. Ignoring the vague prickle of sexuality, I sighed deeply, pulled him closer and drifted back to sleep.

 

"Are we there yet?" snarled out Emma's disgruntled voice through the early morning air.

"Where the hell is there, anyway?" echoed Maddie, her sentiments interrupted by a vast yawn.

"Idaho," chirped Amy helpfully. "We should be coming into Boise in about an hour. Is Beth in the bathroom already? Jesus..."

I opened my eyes slowly, carefully, as the reality of my situation slowly dawned on me. Amy. How the hell was I going to explain Thom's presence to her? After years of squabbling, we'd unanimously decreed a no sex on the tourbus rule this time out. No, get a grip on yourself, I told myself. She wouldn't have left the venue without at least checking that I was on board, and she would have had to have seen that I was not alone. But Thom had had his back to her, shielded behind my body - it was entirely possible that she had mistaken him for Damien. _Oh, even worse,_ I thought to myself. No, better get this over with.

"Hey," I breathed into Thom's ear, rubbing my lips back and forth across his earlobe. "Time to get up. Where are your jeans? Get dressed."

"Do I have to?" he moaned, twisting around in my grasp to face me. "I'd rather just lie here with you." Wrapping his arms around me, he kissed me tenderly, pressing his hips against mine.

"Stop it," I warned, rubbing my nose against his, but my body was nowhere near as convincing as my voice. As appealing as the offer sounded, I did not want to risk it with Amy standing less than ten feet away, just outside the curtain. But as he ran his hands down the small of my back, my resolved wavered, and I found I was more than willing to let him slip inside me, fastening my teeth around his tongue to keep from crying out. 

No matter how many times we did this, sex with him was never going to seem anything other than something illicit and furtive, something to keep hidden and be ashamed of, though for some reason, that only seemed to add to the appeal this morning. The slow trickle of orgasm slowly dawned across my waking body, dragging me quickly to consciousness. _There!_ Everything was normal, the awkwardness of the previous night completely overcome, just a momentary hiccup in an otherwise wonderful romance. Showering Thom's face with kisses, I exhaled as quietly as I could, relieved when he climaxed with a tiny sigh and a beatific smile.

Digging around at the bottom of the bed, I managed to locate the dress I'd been wearing the previous evening, pulling it over my head before handing Thom his jeans and a crumpled orange T-shirt. "Wait a few minutes!" I instructed him softly, before pulling back the curtain halfway and crawling from the bed.

"Good morning, Kate," cooed Amy with a roguish smile that made it perfectly plain she knew I was up to something, or rather, someone. "And how did you sleep?"

"Fine, fine," I assured her, digging in my purse for my morning's regimen of pretty little pills.

"And how did Damien sleep?" she giggled, moving closer, and elbowing me chummily.

"Um... uh..." I stuttered, unsure of whether to just tell her the truth or hedge as long as I could. If we could get to the hotel without Thom emerging, I could just about smuggle him out of the bus and pack him on the next plane home without anyone noticing.

"I'm not Damien!" Suddenly, a very disgruntled Thom emerged from the bunk, buttoning his jeans, then pulling his shirt over his head.

Amy's eyes practically popped out of her head as she stared back and forth between the two of us, too shocked to even consider which of us to yell at first. Her eyes flickered with recognition as she looked at him, but her face wavered with disbelief.

As he wandered over to me and stood up against the wall, his body bristling with defensiveness as he wrapped one arm possessively around my waist, I took the bull by the horns, and started to introduce them. "Thom, this is our manager, Amy. Amy, this is Thom Ebor..."

But as if in a bad dream, the bathroom door slowly swung open, and Beth emerged. When she caught sight of Thom, she smiled in recognition, then frowned in confusion as the obvious thought of _what the hell is he doing here?_ crossed her mind, then, as she caught sight of his arm draped casually around my waist, her face darkened to a scowl. "Thom...?" she ventured.

"Oh, hi, Elizabeth," he stuttered, oblivious to the kitchen sink drama being enacted in front of him, but conscious of some new tension that had just emerged.

Beth turned on me with viperous spite, flinging her wet towel at me in lieu of any other accessible weapon. "You fucking cunt! I hate you! How _could_ you?" she snarled at me, whirling on him to scream "Thom! She's a fucking whore! Why?! _Why?!_ " Without even waiting for an answer, she whirled around and stormed from the hallway.

"Oh, crap..." sighed Amy. "Emma's in there..."

"What was _that_ for?" I exploded. "And who cares if Emma is in there. I am so fucking _sick_ of walking on eggshells around the two of them! _Grow up,_ _bitch!_ " I hurled after her.

Thom cowered between us like a terrified child, staring back and forth between our angry faces before taking the option of flight, darting between the two of us and barricading himself in the bathroom.

"Hey!" hollered Amy, completely blowing her cool for the first time I'd seen in years, banging on the door as if to take out all her frustrations of the past few weeks on the thin slab of metal. "It was _my_ fucking turn! Get the hell out of there right this minute, Eboracum, or you're dead fucking meat!"

By the time we pulled into town, no one was speaking to anyone. The fragile truce that had got us through the past few days was in tatters, as Beth glared at me, Emma glared at Beth, and Maddie hid in a corner, trying to avoid us all. Her diplomacy forgotten, Amy simply let go and screamed at us if we so much as stepped out of line, until we were all beaten into a cowering but resentful submission. 

Onstage, we were tighter and more polished than we'd been in months, our songs honed by weeks of nightly playing, but the moment we all stepped off stage, we were at each other's throats again. But even Amy had to admire the way that we kept the feuds out of the performance, using the tension and the competitiveness to improve the music, driving each other to greater heights, though sometimes I suspected it was simply another show of one-upmanship, that each of us could prove ourselves more professional, more in control of the situation, by not allowing it to affect our playing.

Strangely, Thom seemed oblivious to the tension around him, or perhaps he even thrived on it, admirably calm in the face of the shouting matches around him, until I found myself clinging to him for support in the face of my disintegrating relationships, as much as he clung to me during the nights. Keeping to ourselves, wrapped up in each other's company, I found I was able to ignore the chaos around me.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye, standing off to one side in the wings, just out of sight of the audience, hugging himself tightly, the sleeves of his sweaters hanging down over his knuckles like a boy wearing his father's clothes. With his eyes half closed, whether in boredom or entrancement I could not quite tell, he started to sway slightly in time with the music. As the last notes of the last song died away, I put down my bass and picked my way over to him, my eyebrows raised, waiting for his pronouncement.

He simply shrugged and smiled mysteriously, watching me calmly, leaning back slightly, his arms crossed. For several minutes, there was tension between us, a non-verbal game of chicken to see who would break the silence first, but as I looked over and saw Beth casting a burning glare at the two of us, I flinched. "Shall we go somewhere else?" I pleaded. "Somewhere more private?"

Thom scowled. "You just don't want to be seen in public with me, do you?" he muttered, low enough to pass off as a joke, though the hurt showed through in his voice.

"Please don't you start with me," I begged, taking his hand in mine boldly and squeezing it for reassurance.

"We're in the middle of nowhere. What are you worried about? Who is going to see us? And what are you ashamed of, anyway?" he continued petulantly.

Doing my best to cloud his complaints out of my mind, I dug in my bag for my medication and swallowed a few of the pink pills with a swig of a soda. "Can we just manage to get to a diner and find something to eat without an argument?"

"What are those, anyway?" he demanded, trying to catch my hand and get a better look at the bottle, but I held them it out of his grasp.

"I told you! Antibiotics." Well, the white ones were antibiotics, at least. 

"Why do you have three bottles, then?"

"The other ones are, I think, like, steroids or something, to build up my strength. I don't know, I was fucking ill as hell when they were prescribed. I didn't really listen to anything except how often to take them." To tell the truth, I didn't really have the faintest clue what the others were. Holding the bottle out of Thom's reach, I stared at the label, trying to read the mysterious chemical ingredients. 

"I thought I saw a place down the street," he offered in a conciliatory tone. "Do you want to walk? It's a nice night."

Out in the fresh air, away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the club, my mood lifted, and I found myself swinging my arms, grinning at Thom shyly, like a teenager with a crush. As we turned a corner, suddenly I saw an enormous purple slab of a mountain rising up behind the city, pale and shimmering in the moonlight. Here we were in the middle of nowhere, man's efforts at creating a tiny outpost of civilisation in the midst of the wilderness completely dwarfed by a spur thrown up with most casual of efforts by nature. Normally, I felt depressed and dismayed by these tiny cities clinging to the Rockies, but for some reason, tonight I felt strangely elevated and uplifted.

"When it's all over, when I've finally had enough, I think I'd like to come somewhere like this... well, not down in the city here, but just crawl up into the mountains with a shotgun and never come down," I fantasised.

Thom laughed. "You'd go mad with boredom in about a week."

"I would not," I snorted, annoyed at being jolted out of the cliché I'd been enjoying.

"You would, too. No fucking Groucho Club up in the Rockies," he teased. "No Avant Garde artists, no libraries full of books about obscure medieval religious cults." He raised his eye wide with mock horror. "No internet access... whatever would you do for entertainment?"

"Find some mountain man, settle down and raise a brood of squalling brats," I tossed back playfully, suddenly turning around to wrap my arms around his neck and plant a tender kiss on his surprised lips.

"I'm hardly mountain man material," he laughed back, blushing slightly, but nonetheless pleased. Actually, I hadn't been thinking of him, but I let him believe I had, grinning guiltily. As I'd been picturing my mountain hideaway, it was Damien's stubbly face that had leered from the bear rug in front of the fireplace.

"Excuse me..." said a tiny, timid voice behind us, making us both jump. I turned around to see a tiny teenage girl with dyed burgundy hair and a Charms T-shirt eyeing me with nothing less than outright hero worship in her eyes. "Oh my god, you _are_ Kate Gordon, oh my god," she gushed excitedly. "I was just at your show, you guys were so excellent. Oh my god, I can't believe you actually played here. Last year I had to bug my mom to drive all the way to Salt Lake City, which was a fucking great show, too, oh my god..." 

This entire monologue was delivered seemingly without a single pause for breath. "Oh my god, I can't believe this. Kate Gordon! You are, like, so cool. I begged my mom to buy me a bass for my 15th birthday. I can play _Flavour Of the Week_ now, and a friend is going to e-mail me the tab for _Boy Hairdresser_ , and, oh my god..." Now jiggling up and down excitedly, she suddenly stopped and slapped herself in the head. "Can I get your autograph?"

I smiled broadly, glancing at Thom in apology, then suddenly cringing in embarrassment when I realised that she'd asked me for my autograph, but completely ignored Thom. My first impulse was to scream _Jesus Christ, don't you know who this is, only the most powerful songwriter of our generation,_ but then I winced when I realised that I was even more terrified of someone recognising him.

"Sure," I shrugged with an contrite smile for Thom. "What's your name?"

"Sharon," she nodded enthusiastically, producing a ticket stub and a ballpoint pen.

"Sharon, do you have anything bigger than this?" I asked with a smile.

"Bigger?" she stuttered, digging in her backpack for a notebook. "Why?"

"The bass tab for Boy Hairdresser is not going to fit on the back of this ticket stub," I laughed good-naturedly, suddenly remembering being that young and that excitable, buttonholing the bassist for my favourite local band for an urgent discussion of string gauges, only to be ignored in favour of a 21 year old model with obvious breast implants.

"Oh my god," she repeated for about the 20th time in a row. "Oh my god, thank you so much!"

I shot another guilty glance at Thom as I scrawled the tablature across the page, but he was grinning eagerly. "This is what makes it all worthwhile," he observed wistfully. "Not the record companies, not the shake and fakes, not the industry ego-stroking fests."

Sharon looked up as if noticing him for the first time, squinting her eyes as if in deep concentration. "You look really familiar," she finally ventured, then paused. I froze in fear, but Thom rolled his eyes, grinning in anticipation of the expected recognition. "Are you Damien Hearse?' she eventually postulated.

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole, complete with my mortification, but Thom burst out laughing. "Actually, yes. Yes I am," he managed to squeeze out between the giggles with a crooked wink towards me.

"Cool!" ejected Sharon obliviously, as I bent my head to cover my furious blush. "Congratulations on your engagement. When are you getting married?"

Thom shrugged broadly, obviously pushing it to see how much he could get away with, wondering if I would have the guts to contradict him. "Soon, soon, I hope. The tour will be swinging through Vegas soon. Perhaps then," he quipped with a wink in my direction. "The Elvis Chapel. Definitely the Elvis Chapel. We'd really like Little Richard to do it, but he wasn't available."

"Oh." Sharon beamed, treating this news as if it was the Holy Bible. "Cool. My cousin eloped to Las Vegas, but they couldn't get an appointment at the Elvis Chapel. Oh shit, I better run or my mom is going to have a cow. Thank you _so_ much for the tab, Kate. Oh my god, my friends on the Charms mailing list are going to just _die_ when they hear that I talked to you. Bye! Bye, Damien!" With a jaunty wave, she ran off in the direction from which she'd come, tripping over her oversized Doc Martens.

I turned to glare at Thom, but he was now giggling uncontrollably, so hard he was doubled over, wheezing slightly. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

"Why? I mean, she saw us kissing; it was a logical conclusion," he shrugged, trying to regain control over himself. "At least this way, I've saved your little reputation." Behind the humour, there was a vicious streak of anger and jealousy.

"Yeah? And what happens when Damien reads on the internet that he and I are heading to Las Vegas to get married in an Elvis Chapel?"

"As if Damien would read the Charms mailing list. He can't even get his head around logging on to collect his e-mail. What makes you think that he could figure out how to join a mailing list?" sniped Thom with a snotty little smile. Moving away from him, I headed for the comforting glow of the warm, yellow light spilling from the all-night diner. Without realising that he had said something wrong, he broke into a trot to keep up with me.

I slid into a booth and picked up a menu, picking through the rows and rows of beef in an attempt to find something vegetarian. A cheese omelette with chips; you couldn't go wrong with that. That was what Alex had always said, though that seemed another lifetime ago.The peaceful, calm feeling was gone now, replaced with a vague anxiousness whose cause I could not quite put a finger on. Dammit, were the little pink pills wearing off already? Digging in my bag, I pulled out the medication and swallowed another one with the coffee that the waitress had deposited in front of me.

Thom watched the progress of the pill from the bottle to my mouth, his brow furrowed as he slumped forward, his chin in his hands, but he mercifully said nothing. "We are going through Las Vegas in two days," he observed quietly.

"What, have you memorised our entire tour itinerary?"

He shrugged. "I had to, in case I didn't make my connecting flight to Seattle."

"Your point being?" I didn't want to argue about Damien or my engagement or anything else. The girl I'd just spent two minutes talking to consumed my mind, sweeping me back to memories of my own childhood. How different would I have turned out if I'd been trapped in a tiny town like this, alone with my dreams of a bigger and better life? What was going to happen to her? Had I made the slightest difference in her life, or would she continue on her one-way path to alienation and despair?

"These aren't steroids," observed Thom suddenly. I snapped out of my daze, glancing up to see him toying with the prescription bottle I'd just placed absent-mindedly on the table. "These are tranquillisers."

"Are they?" I asked disinterestedly, almost surprised at my lack of surprise at the news. "I guess the doctor thought I needed them."

Instead of embarking on the lecture I'd been half-expecting, Thom spun the bottle around in his palm as if considering it. "Do they work?"

"Huh?" Shaking my head, I tried to shake off the sense of complacency urging me to simply put my head down on the table and gaze contentedly at Thom's startlingly blue eyes. "I suppose they do," I laughed half-heartedly. Thom shook one into his palm, stared at it suspiciously, then swallowed it with a swig of water. "You shouldn't take other people's prescriptions," I warned, but he simply leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling with a worried expression.

"Drugs and I generally don't get along very well," he apologised, slumping forward and rubbing his temples.

"So why did you take it?"

"Showing off?' he offered with a crooked grin. "Trying to impress you?"

All at once, the absurdity of the situation struck me. Here I was, in a truck-stop diner a million miles from home, sitting across the table from a man I utterly worshipped, belting down tranquillisers to make it all seem normal. And he was trying to show off to _me_. I didn't need tranquillisers; I needed fucking electroshock therapy.

"Cheese omelette with french fries, honey," interrupted the gum-cracking waitress, depositing a plate dripping with grease in front of me. "And a grilled vegetable sandwich for the gentleman... Have a nice evening..."

Stuffing my face with starchy food, I no longer felt the urge to even talk, giggling softly whenever I met Thom's eyes as if sharing some huge joke. Every tiny sentence became loaded with meaning, every glance of his absurdly long eyelashes seemed to shimmer with sentiment. As even his good eyelid drooped and his mouth grew slack, I could see him slipping into the same lazy mood, drugged into a warm and comforting apathy. I barely remembered the meal, or the strangely disjointed and fragmented conversation that accompanied it, but somehow we managed to pay and get ourselves back to the bus, slithering all over the walls as we tried to make our way back to the safety of my bunk bed.

Thom tripped, falling in the middle of the passage, but rather than try to get up, he simply curled up in a ball and started to laugh. "What am I doing?"

"Getting into bed," I urged, taking him by the wrist and attempting to pull him into my cubicle before anyone else returned to the bus and found us.

"Where is bed?" he wondered out loud. "What is bed?"

"Thom, come _on_ ," I snapped, beginning to grow a little annoyed at his showing off. Turning over, he found his way into lounge, half crawling and half rolling. "Are you alright?" I ventured worriedly, realising that he was not play-acting or pretending.

"This is not who I am," he mumbled, raising his arms and rubbing his eyes. Turning back to me, he stared at me helplessly, holding out his hands to me. "But you know what? I don't really fucking care, cause you know why? I'm not sure I even know who I am any more."

"Thom, calm down," I urged him, settling down on the couch beside him, pulling him into my arms and smoothing his hair.

"Calm down..." he cackled softly as if this was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "I am calm. Very calm. One might even say _tranquil_." He was easily half the size of me; no wonder it was hitting him so hard. Add to that the delayed effects of the jet lag that should have been affecting him right about now, and it was a wonder he could walk. Suddenly he opened his good eye as wide as he could, his pupils huge black holes. "I love you," he intoned softly, and very seriously. "You know that, right? I love you."

"Yes," I nodded, pressing my lips against his forehead.

"Why do you never say it back to me?" he demanded.

I looked away, wondering how the hell to reply. Did I love him? Hero worship was not love; how long had it taken me to discover that? "What do you want?" I asked, changing the subject. "Do you want to make love?" I offered. If you can't handle your own emotions, sex is always a handy substitute.

He shook his head, curling up against me and wrapping his arms around my waist, clutching to me like a life support. "No. I don't know what I want any more."

"Come on, Thom, do I have to tell you about the Dalmatians again?" I prodded, teasing, trying to recapture our playful mood.

He smiled, even ventured a laugh, and shook his head. "No, not the Dalmatians. Anything but that! I just want you to hold me. That's all I've ever really wanted." Encircling him with my arms, I laid my cheek against his, kissing his eyelids softly then lying back and playing with his hair. It was longer than I remembered, and baby fine, though down at the roots, I noticed about an inch of another colour, a sort of mousy blond, coming in pale under the darker red so that it looked like he was moulting, or even going bald in patches.

"The red is dyed," I mused aloud.

"Yeah, of course," he giggled. "Did you think I was a natural ginger?"

"I did actually." I felt vaguely disappointed, though I couldn't put my finger on why. It wasn't like I hadn't seen his old photos with bleached and abused hair. Nothing about him seemed to hold up under scrutiny, but then again, pop stars never did. He wasn't even really red-headed, my little red-headed boyfriend.

"You can't tell me that blonde is your natural hair colour, though," he snorted.

"It is. You've seen my IDs."

"Oh, right." He paused in a way that made it fairly obvious he had completely forgotten. How drunk had he been? Fuck, he'd driven home that night. "I remember how scared I was of you when I first met you," he finally confessed, opening his eyes, and managing to fix his blue gaze upon me."I thought you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. I could barely speak to you..."

I shook my head in denial, refusing to believe what I was hearing. "Please, I've asked you not to do that. I don't respond well to flattery. I never believe it, so I don't really know how to take it."

He laughed, a soft sigh of recognition, leaning forward to kiss me softly on the cheek. "Beautiful people frighten me. Well, no, it's not exactly frighten... but there's that transparent, incorporeal quality, where you know that they've never ever had a difficult moment in their lives. Nothing terrible has ever happened to them to make them have to work for anything, they've never had to develop a personality to get them through and make people like them. They've never struggled. And I always that makes beautiful people inherently uninteresting."

"Is that really what you think of me?" I asked, shocked, suddenly seeing all of our interactions in a different light.

"Well..."

I started to grow angry, annoyed even through the cotton wool layers of the tranquilliser. What was this stuff, truth serum? No; I simply no longer cared what he thought of what I said. "What about people who are ugly ducklings? Who have gone their entire lives being despised, hated, ridiculed for having a stupid fucking accent, or for being the scholarship kid from the wrong side of town, for being too smart, too weird, too... whatever... and then suddenly, one day, you wake up, and you're adored by millions of people and called a sex symbol, which means no one ever fucking takes you seriously, ever again - what about us? What does that say about my personality, or lack thereof?"

"Bollocks," snorted Thom. "You sprung from the womb golden and perfect and loved by the entire world. You've always been the blue-eyed child, the perfect princess - what do they call it in your country? The prom queen."

"You don't even have a fucking clue who I am, what I've gone through. You can believe what you want about me, it doesn't make it true."

He laid his head against my chest, half closing his eyes. "I don't know what to believe any more. And do you know what? I don't care. You spend your entire life worrying about what will happen when you finally lose it completely and everything falls apart, and then it happens, and what do you feel? Nothing. You don't feel a thing. Because the worry and the fear is worse than anything that actually can happen to you. When it finally does happen, it almost feels like a sense of relief. Standing at the top of a cliff, looking down is more frightening than actually falling. It almost feels like freedom. I'm just babbling, really, just tell me to be quiet."

"No, _that_ makes perfect sense to me. _What's it like to be so free? So free it seems like loss to me..._ " I started to sing softly.

He smiled warmly. "The Clash," he identified. "You're just like me. When you can't express what you need to say, you just quote pop songs."

"Sometimes I wonder if I ever have a life outside of pop songs," I sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my entire life on something completely ridiculous and ephemeral, throwing myself away on trivial drivel. And that's when I start to over-compensate, wrapping myself in a bubble of trivial and esoteric information to prove that I _am_ a well-rounded and completely integrated person..."

"So why do you do this to yourself? You hate it. All these fucking petty concerns about the charts and the fucking Groucho Club. Your elitist mates with their cocaine and their caviar. It's bullshit and you know it. This isn't who you are. This isn't what you're about," he snarled, pulling away from me, walking halfway across the lounge before giving up and sinking down to the floor.

He had a way of hitting me exactly where it hurt the most, when I least expected it. But this time I hit back."Well, why the fuck are you even here if you all hate it so much?" I threw back at him, sick of his endless moralistic preaching. Why was it that everyone thought they could tell me how to run my life better than I could manage it myself? Probably cause I was stupid enough to keep asking. "You showed up here. I didn't ask you to come. This is my job, and I have to do it, but you came of your own free will! So just shut up about it."

Thom crumpled into a ball, his fingers tangled in his hair, rocking back and forth gently to himself. "I don't know. I just keep getting the feeling that something has all gone terribly wrong." He paused, scratching his head as if lost in memory. "I keep thinking about that poor girl we met tonight. You don't know how many of these kids I've met, and they all come to me, expecting me to have some sort of answers. I can't even keep my own fucking life in order, yet here I am, some sort of spokesman for their generation. It really does get to the point where it's such a relief not to be recognised!"

I stared at the floor, cringing in embarrassment, remembering the poor girl's honest mistake.

" _Answers_. They expect _me_ to have the answers," he repeated, looking up at me. "I'm standing on a stage, screaming about how confused and uptight and frustrated I am, and these teenagers, are looking to me to solve their problems." He collapsed into giggles at the irony of his statement, then his face twisted into fury. It never failed to amaze me, how quickly his mood could snap, jolting from amusement or laughter into anger. "You know, when I was a teenager, I had all the fucking answers. I was so fucking concerned about everything. Even though I was a miserable little bastard, lying around listening to Joy Division and the Smiths, I knew exactly what was wrong with the universe, even when I didn't know what was wrong with myself. I was still lamenting the miserable fucking state of the our society, upset with the government, protesting everything and boycotting everything under the mistaken impression that I could make a difference."

"You don't need to fucking preach to me," I snarled back, suddenly rankling from the insult I'd swallowed a few minutes before. "This is what bothers me about you, is when you start to get all arrogant and condescending, like you're the only person who's ever felt this way. I know you find it hard to believe, but I've been there. It fucking hurts when you call me a little princess prom queen, because that's about the furthest thing from my life. I was an angry little teenage rebel with a shaved head and a _Fuck Reaganomics_ T-shirt, giving myself ulcers over nuclear war. And for what? Nothing we did made a fucking difference in the slightest."

Sitting up, Thom smiled apologetically as if noticing me for the first time during his monologue. "We thought we were going to make a difference, didn't we?" he sighed, sounding very weak and very tired, as if the anger blowing through him a few moments ago had receded, taking all of the energy holding him together with it.

"Did we? Perhaps we were just angry, and looking for somewhere to focus that anger on. I wonder sometimes, if we didn't make a mistake, caring so passionately about it all. Because we didn't end up changing a fucking thing, and I can't shake the feeling that I wasted the last fucking carefree years of my life worrying about things I couldn't control anyway. I _should_ have spent my teenage years worrying about clothes and boys and screaming over whatever boy bands it was that _Tiger Beat_ were trying to shove down my throat."

Thom burst out laughing. "That's what this is, isn't it? This whole band is just you, getting to live your adolescence over the way you wanted to. You're too old to go to your Prom, so that's what the Groucho is for, isn't it? That whole fucking Soho mentality - the grown-up's playground."

I glared at him, readying a snide come-back on the tip of my tongue until I realised that he might just be right. "Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. This whole band, my whole life is just delayed adolescence. I wasted mine on those stupid, pesky ideals of mine, so now this is my chance to do it over in the typical, socially acceptable mode of rebellion - sex drugs and rock'n'roll, man," I drawled. "When I was 16, all I cared about was politics and philosophy and art, and everyone just accused me of being on drugs, because we know that's all that's really ever wrong with teenagers. Well, fuck that. Now I'm an adult, the hell with it all. Bring on the cheap sex and the free drugs; bring on the fucking Groucho Club you're so fixated on as being the perfect incarnation of everything that's wrong with my life. I'm only doing everything that's expected of me."

"Can't you just drop it for just one moment?" snarled Thom, his face darkening.

"Drop what?" I shrugged testily.

"Where does it ever end with you? Where does the sarcasm end and where do you begin? Do you even know any more?" he accused.

"We've had this argument already," I snapped. "Can you find something else to pick on me for?"

Crawling over to me, he wrapped his arms around my waist and forced his head into my lap. "I don't think we were wrong," he repeated. "I think we've been beaten back and beaten down and told to shut up and just get on with it, but I still think that we were right and they were wrong. You said it yourself - you're trying to live your life their way, returning to the adolescence you wish you'd had. But it's false, it's a false image. I think they feel as fucked up and twisted and confused inside as we do, but they're just afraid to show it."

"No, I refuse to accept that," I insisted, twining my fingers in his hair, pushing it this way and that until I saw his actual scalp showing through, pale and pink under the piebald whirls.

"You're contradicting yourself already. You told me a few weeks ago in e-mail that it's our job to be tuning forks, resonating with the angst of our times. Everyone is as fucked up as we feel, we're just better at expressing it."

"That's not what I said," I protested.

" _We're paid to express the fucking inarticulate yearnings and emotions of a sick fucking society,_ is what I believe you said," he quoted, verbatim.

"I was joking," I snorted, dropping my hands from his hair.

"I think you're only ever serious when you're making a joke," he chuckled. Everything seemed to be funny to him tonight, slap-happy from jet lag and lack of sleep and drugs. Not sure of what to say, I stood up and turned away, heading back towards my bunk bed, but Thom followed, catching me by the hand, desperation showing through under the laughter in his eyes. "Even if it was a joke, it's still the only thing anyone's said to me in the past year or so that's made any real sense."

"Pretty pathetic year you've had, then," I tossed back facetiously, but he looked as if someone had just slapped him in the face.

"Kate, please. Don't walk away from me. Everyone always walks away from me when I get like this, and I can't say I fucking blame them." His voice was cracking. "At this point, you're just about the only thing standing between me and a complete fucking breakdown. Talk to me, argue with me, even if it's just to tell me that I'm completely fucking wrong. Maybe I'm only arguing because I'm afraid that you're right."

"Thom..." I sighed gently, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him close, crushing him against my chest and kissing the top of his head.

"I need you," he begged in a tiny voice.

At that moment, it was all I needed to hear. I just wanted so desperately to be needed by someone, because in the process of holding someone else up, I seemed not to notice myself falling down. Something fierce and maternal burned deep inside me, and I knew with absolute certainty that I could kill anyone who ever tried to hurt him. Was that love? Well, it certainly felt like it right now.

"I love you," he insisted. "I love you so goddamn much, you're the only thing holding me together. Do you love me?"

I nodded, digging in my handbag for my prescriptions, knowing that they were the one thing that could make this dizzy, terrifying feeling go away. The white ones were the antibiotics, the yellow ones were steroids, and the pink ones were the tranquillisers, right? Peering at the labels in the half light, I read the warnings, trying to decipher which ones were which. _Controlled substance - dangerous unless used as directed. Caution: May cause drowsiness or dizziness. Danger: Do not mix with alcohol! Risk of disorientation, memory loss and even death._ Now that would have to be the tranquillisers. "Yes, I love you," I murmured, more to the bottle of pills than to the man crumpled in my lap.

 

\-------------------

 

Day by day, the atmosphere on the bus seemed to grow more and more tense, though I tried my best to ignore it by burying myself in my new relationship with Thom. However, this only seemed to exacerbate the already drawn lines of battle between us. With the unexpected arrival of Thom on the scene, Beth had now decided that she was no longer talking to me, either, withdrawing moodily to the back lounge to obsessively watch old black and white films over and over. My first impulse was to retreat to my bunk by myself, but with two people in the tiny compartment, it soon grew unbearably cramped. Thom tried to venture back to watch a film with her, but soon returned to the front lounge, his face as dark as a stormcloud, as if she'd given him more than a piece of his mind.

But as soon as he sat down beside me and wrapped a tentative arm around my shoulder, bending forward to whisper something in my ear, Maddie abruptly stood up, glanced around with a profoundly pissed off expression, then made a beeline for the rear of the bus.

"Now, I wonder what that's about," noted Emma with a mysterious smirk, looking up from the videogame in which she was engrossed.

"Oh, bloody hell," I sighed, lowering my face into my hands. "I don't even want to speculate." In the pit of my stomach, I already knew. She saw my liaison with Thom as a betrayal of the wedding vows I still had yet to take with Damien. _Well, fuck you, Maddie. I'm not married yet; this is my final fling before I settle down into complacent wedded bliss._ That was what this was, right? Suddenly, I wasn't so sure. Damien hadn't called, he hadn't e-mailed, and the memory of his face was growing steadily dimmer in my mind now that Thom was consuming my days and my nights. It was simply hero worship, that was all it was, even when my hero was curled up with his head in my lap, letting me stroke his hair, gazing up at me with those huge blue eyes, as wonder-filled as a little boy. I gave up and went back to my bunk, with Thom padding behind me.

It was early afternoon when we pulled into the next town, though I'd all but given up on trying to tell the small cities apart. Thom and I had been lying together in my bunk bed, rolled onto our stomachs, with a paperback book between our heads. For once in my life, I seemed to have met someone who read at the same speed I did, turning the pages after a grunt of confirmation from him, occasionally letting out little mutual sighs or observations at the interesting parts. I'd given up on the edifying tomes and headed straight for a Victorian novel.

"It's the dead husband," snickered Thom as the chapter neared its denouncement.

"Hush, I haven't read this one yet," I admonished.

"Neither have I, but it's Hardy. You should know by now that in Thomas Hardy novels, missing husbands are never dead..."

"Come on, we're here, you lovebirds," interrupted Emma, pulling up the edge of our curtain and peering in with devilish glee, as if counting on catching us in the act of something illicit. Emma had decided that she really liked Thom, for the simple reason that my relationship with him wound Beth up so much. And something childish in Thom seemed to respond to her little-sister teasing. "And you'll never guess what I see across the road..."

"I have no idea, and no interest in finding out until we finish this chapter..." I insisted, but Thom's attention was wandering, grinning up at Emma.

"Is that the Mayor of Casterbridge?" Emma asked, turning her head sideways to peer at the title. "The missing husband comes back, and it turns out that the daughter is really his, and so the mayor disinherits her. Now come on!"

"Oh, I hate you," I tossed back, closing the book and hurling it at her head.

"We're coming into the outskirts of Las Vegas now," piped up the driver from up front, momentarily breaking the tension. "I need to stop for gas, but does anyone else need anything?"

"Oh yes," sighed Thom, climbing to his feet and stretching, then bounding down the steps of the bus and bolting as soon as the bus crawled to a standstill.

My heart flickered with conflicting desires as I watched him run. Half of me was terrified that he was going to run away and never return, leaving me alone and helpless in the middle of nowhere, but the other half of me secretly wished that he would do exactly that, relieving me of the need to have to make a choice or resolve the entire tangled mess of my personal life.

But, a few minutes later, there was the familiar creak of the door opening, and then Thom bounced back onto the bus, bearing a large brown paper packet with an enormous grin, his head shielded from the sun by an ridiculously large cowboy hat.

"What is that?" asked Emma worriedly, barely glancing up from her game.

"It's a ten gallon Stetson," quipped Thom, draping it over her head, then pulling back the paper bag to reveal what must have been about a gallon of Absolut. "It'll match the cowboy shirt you got at the last truckstop."

Emma beamed, glancing back and forth between Thom and I with an approving look. "Did I ever tell you you're my hero?" she quipped, in obvious parody of my attitude toward him.

"No, but I have the feeling I'm about to become the wind beneath your wings," he tossed back, plopping himself down between us and wrestling with the cap to the bottle. "Got any shotglasses around here?"

"Shotglasses are for wimps," pronounced Emma, putting down the joystick for her videogame and taking the bottle from him, breaking the seal and twisting the cap off easily. "Right, Kate? What's a little backwash between bandmates? Besides, I already know that you two have swapped enough saliva. Bottoms up!" Throwing her head back, she swallowed an unbelievably large swig before passing it over Thom's head to me.

"Vodka, Kate?" asked Thom playfully, wafting the bottle under my nose after taking a few gulps.

"Why not?" I sighed. I hadn't drunk in weeks, on account of the antibiotics, but I'd finally finished the course of the little white pills, and intended to make up for lost time. Taking the bottle, I swallowed two of the wonderful little pink pills with a huge gulp. Dammit, if the two of them were planning on passing the afternoon in a drunken haze, well, I was going to pop a couple of the wonderfully numbing tranquillisers.

 

I woke not knowing where I was. Actually, I didn't really wake up so much as I slowly drifted back to consciousness, my head pounding, my mouth dry as sandpaper, my stomach churning, my mind empty of any memory or sensation except the desperate, dizzying need to throw up. Without pausing to even wonder where the hell I was, I crawled from the bed, shrugging a grasping arm from around my waist and looking around wildly for the bathroom. Bright light, tile - that seemed like the right place. Unable to stand up, let alone walk, I dragged myself to the toilet and somehow managed to get the seat up before lowering my head and depositing the contents of my stomach into the water below.

For quite some time, I simply lay there, too weak to move, but as I slowly fought my way to consciousness, I became more aware of my surroundings. This was definitely not the Charms tourbus. In fact, the palatial bathroom seemed to be too sumptuous even to be the typical Holiday Inn suites we'd all seen so many times as to have them memorised. Suddenly, in a panic struck moment, I realised that I quite honestly didn't have the faintest clue where the hell I was. Or, come to think of it, how the hell I'd got here.

I'd drank to the point of having a blackout before; I had to admit I was no stranger to that phenomenon. But this felt different. Usually, when I drank myself to the point of unconsciousness, I had a dim memory of events growing steadily more fuzzy, and then a few disjointed fragments of the rest of the evening. But this? There was nothing but a gulf of blackness between me and the past. For a moment, I feared the worst. Brain damage? Amnesia? Who was I? Where was I? What was I doing here?

No, you're being ridiculous and over reacting, I told myself. My name is Kate Gordon, it's Autumn of 1998 and I'm on tour with the Charms somewhere in the West of America. Seeing a window at the far end of the bathroom, I tried to sit up, but my head exploded into splinters of migraine, so I lay back down on the floor again, the tiled floor cool against my forehead. Think, Kate _think!_ Where are you? What's the last thing you remember? Stopping to get gas somewhere outside Las Vegas. Thom came back with a cowboy hat and a bottle of vodka... _Jesus Christ!_ The tranquillisers, or whatever those strange pills I'd been taking were... could they have done this to me if combined with enough alcohol? Wasn't there some sort of warning about this on the bottle? Oh god, how could I have been so stupid?

My face felt strangely puffy, and my cheek ached. Raising my hand to my head, I pushed the greasy veil of my hair out of my face to touch my face, wincing as my fingertips brushed under my eye, half noticing that my hair was catching strangely in my fingers. But it wasn't until I dragged myself over to the sink, climbing to my feet and rinsing my face off, then staring in the opulent mirror at the odd bruise dusted across one cheekbone, that I noticed a flash of gold on my left hand. Blinking against the light, I slowly focused my eyes on my hand, staring down at the unfamiliar sight of a plain gold band around the third finger, the nascent black eye completely forgotten. _Jesus fucking Christ_. A wedding ring?

For a moment, my mind lurched, as a million different possibilities flashed across my mind. _Damien._ Damien had shown up and saved me from the entire mess that my personal life seemed to have become. As appealing as the idea was, it seemed unlikely. Besides, what about Thom? My heart reeled wildly at the other possibility. No, it was absurd. I couldn't possibly be _that_ drunk to make that seem like a good idea. Rinsing my mouth with water, I looked around desperately, and was rewarded with a small tube of hotel toothpaste, but no toothbrush. Oh well, desperate times call for desperate measures, I thought to myself, squeezing a dollop onto my index finger and attempting to rub it onto my teeth. The Luxor Hotel, declared the tiny tube in bright gold letters. The Luxor Hotel? That would explain the vaguely pseudo-Egyptian décor of the room. 

Well, that was the _where_ solved, but what about the _how_? Well, there was only one way to find that out. Rinsing my face again, I straightened myself, waited for the room to stop spinning, and then, slowly and carefully made my way out to the bedroom. Dwarfed by the enormous, king-sized bed, curled up like a little boy with his arms flung out in child-like abandon, his red hair blazing against the white sheets, lay Thom, his sleeping face twisted into an extraordinarily peaceful smile. With a sense of panic, my eyes followed the lily-white curve of his arm up, over his head, and there, on the third finger of the left hand that was balled into a tiny fist, sat the companion to the ring on my own hand.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Kate wakes up in a hotel room in Las Vegas, only to discover that she has accidentally married Thom Eboracum during a 3-day drinking binge. And to make matters worse, some potentially damaging scheming has been going on back in the relationship she left behind. Can The Charms, as a band, survive the fallout from Kate's collapsing relationships?
> 
> Content warning for dub-con, for sex, marriages and everything else entered into while in a state where consent is impossible. Implied domestic violence. And just general shitty and abusive behaviour from everyone.

Sinking down to the mattress, I wanted to cry. What the fuck had I done? This was no longer a joke, this was no longer some little last-ditch fling I could control or justify. No, calm down. It was probably all a joke, some silly whim of Thom's that I'd indulged, masquerading as a married couple to get the honeymoon suite at a hotel. Crawling back into bed, I stretched myself along the rumpled sheets beside him, staring at his sleeping face, his features smoothed into a beatific smile despite the gingery-gold stubble dusted across his jaw. 

_What was his natural hair colour, anyway?_ I wondered, suddenly realising that I didn't really know a thing about him. All those tiny minutia that made up the slow growing body of intimacy were a complete mystery to me. His middle name, his favourite food, his childhood fears, even his bloody birthday... what was his astrological sign, anyway? And since when had _I_ started caring about astrological signs? That had always been Damien's passion; I was the sensible, rational one.

Shifting slightly, his face twitched as if he could feel the weight of my gaze, and then one eye cautiously half-opened. As soon as he saw me, he grinned and rolled toward me, the other eye opening, huge with wonder and love as he reached out and pushed my hair out of my face.

"Mrs. Eboracum," he giggled, bending forward to brush his lips across mine.

_Jesus fucking Christ. No!_

Mistaking the outright panic flashing across my face, he laughed softly. "Oops, sorry, I forgot. I was going to take your name, wasn't I? Thom Gordon. I do like the way that sounds, actually. Gordon-Eboracum. It's a mouthful, but it rhymes."

We really were married? How fucking long have we been married? When? Where? _Why?!_ Jesus fucking Christ, this is not happening. Shaking my head gently, I pressed my fingers against my temples, praying that I would wake up, trying not to look to obviously shocked. No, I was definitely awake. This was real. "I just can't get used to this," I confessed, trying to stay calm, and trying very hard not to let on that I didn't have the faintest clue what had happened in the past 24 hours. More? How long had it been?

"I'm used to it already," he boasted, settling back on the pillow and folding his arms behind his head, beaming broadly as he studied me. "Or rather, I think I think I could get used to it very easily. I feel so happy, so peaceful. God, you have no idea how much you mean to me. I was at the end of my fucking rope, Kate. If you hadn't come along, I don't know what I'd have done."

I smiled placidly, barely daring to speak for fear for fear of slipping up and betraying myself. "I'm glad."

"Come 'ere," he growled, reaching out and slipping his arm around my waist, pulling me over on top of him with a surprised yelp.

"Ow, Thom, my head is pounding," I warned.

"Oh, oh, is this how it starts?" he teased. "We've been married only a day and you've got a headache now."

"A hangover," I explained, rapidly trying to compute the time in my head. I was missing an entire day?

"And you have been telling me what a high tolerance you have for the past few days, as you've been sucking down my vodka. What did you say to me the day before yesterday? _'Give me the fucking bottle Thom, I've gone onstage drunker than this',_ " he parroted, in imitation of a threat he'd obviously found intensely amusing, tickling me under the ribs.

Day before yesterday? It had been two days then. Which left 48 hours missing, unaccounted for. "And how much did I drink last night?" I asked, hoping that I sounded playful, rather than worried.

"Oh, stop it, don't tease me," he groaned, flipping me over onto my back and leaping on top of me, pinning me to the mattress playfully. "You swore to the minister at the Elvis Chapel that you were legally sober when you dragged me in there."

"Dragged?" I stuttered.

"OK, OK, I guess I dragged you," he laughed, letting go of my wrist and slipping his hand between my legs, tangling my fingers in my hair. "I'd still rather have gone to the Shotgun Wedding Shack, though. I mean..." He grinned innocently as his penis followed his fingers, pushing himself gently between my inner labia. "Mmmm... I mean, we had only had two Mai Tai's a piece that afternoon. We just didn't tell him about the half a litre of Jack Daniels we'd each had between breakfast and lunch." He seemed to think that it was terribly funny, as if we'd pulled a fast one over on the establishment, rather than embarking on a terribly important life decision completely plastered.

"Thom..." His name stuck in my throat as he caught me, my tired and aching flesh responding to his touch despite the panic in my mind. Taking my face between his hands, he pulled my lips up towards his, kissing me hungrily, coaxing desire from my body until I replied in kind, arching my back to meet him.

"Stop fretting," he ordered, nuzzling my nose against my neck. "I am trying to make love to you. Don't make me come in there and tell you about the Dalmatians."

 

I don't know how we made it to the bus in time. Hell, without Thom, I don't think I could even have found the bus, but he seemed to maintain the most uncanny memory, even when drunk. Stumbling through the parking lot of a smaller, less ritzy hotel, I started to wonder if he was looking after me as much as he claimed I was looking after him.

"Oh, there you are," muttered Amy distractedly, one ear glued to her cell phone while she stared at the tour itinerary. "Has anyone seen Maddie and Beth? Bloody hell! Whose idea was it to stay over in Las Vegas for our day off? This is one of those places we should have just cleared the hell out of."

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the door, as Maddie stuck her head through, bedecked in a wide straw hat and a pair of catseye sunglasses. "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that you are looking at the winners of the Sunset Room jackpot of $122.75, yes, thank you kindly!" she giggled, holding up a shopping bag full of quarters.

"Get on the bus!" growled Amy. "Where's Beth?"

"Behind me," yelped Maddie, scrambling for the rear lounge with Beth hot on her tail.

"Emma, you had better not be using the VCR," floated Beth's voice from down the corridor.

"You have had it for three fucking days, now!" snarled Emma in reply. "It's my bloody turn to be able to watch some fucking films! You don't own this thing, you know!"

Amy nodded to the bus driver to pull away from the curb, then took a deep breath, rolling her eyes. "Twenty-four hours. I had twenty-four hours of peace without you lot while you were running around making nuisances of yourselves in Las Vegas," she sighed, folding the cell phone and placing it back in her pocket. As she stretched, I saw that she'd had her hair done and her nails extended and carefully painted. "Thank you for the absolutely worst idea in the entire world, Thom." She paused when she saw the grin on his face. "Why are you smirking like that? Wipe that grin off your face; you look entirely too satisfied with yourself to possibly be up to any good."

"Yes, Mum," giggled Thom.

"Kate, what happened to your face?" Amy suddenly asked, moving in to peer at the bruise I had completely forgotten.

"Nothing," I shrugged, afraid to tell her that I simply didn't know. I didn't want to jump to conclusions, really I didn't. In the state I'd been wandering around in, it was entirely possible that I could simply have passed out, fallen and hit my head on something.

"Amy!" interrupted Emma's voice from the back lounge. "Tell Beth it's my fucking turn for the VCR!"

Amy paused, slowly counting to ten before heading back along the corridor, swearing as her cell phone started to ring. There were a few moments of low-volume squabbling, as Thom and I exchanged grins.

"You didn't tell her," he protested, picking up my hand and playing with the ring.

"I thought you were going to," I stuttered, pulling my hand back away from him as if I'd been burnt. Damn. For some reason, I kept thinking that if I ignored it, it would simply go away.

"Everyone, just shut up!" screamed Amy's voice from the rear of the bus. "What did you say?"

"Ooh, someone's in trouble," I giggled stretching out along the seat, relieved to actually have the entire front lounge to ourselves. In what had become almost an instinctual reaction, as soon as I sat down in the bus, I reached for my bag and pulled out the bottle of tranquillisers.

"Kate..." whined Thom, squinting at them suspiciously. "Do you really need..."

"Just don't start with me!" I snapped.

"No, I'm not starting with you," he sighed patiently. "I just..." He lay back, smiling up at me contentedly. "You're my wife now. I care about you. I... I love you. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Resisting the urge to throw back _If it wasn't for the damn tranquillisers, I'd never be your wife in the first place_ , I merely shrugged and put the bottle back into the bag, surreptitiously palming one of the little pink pills and slipping it into my mouth the moment his back was turned. Turning away, he dug under the table and pulled out the remains of a bottle of Jack Daniels, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig.

After only a few minutes, already the commotion in the back of the bus seemed to diminish, as I wrapped my arms around Thom, letting him sink back into my lap, squeezing him like a stuffed animal or a doll as he lazily flicked the controls on Emma's videogame. A few feet away, I could hear Amy yelling into her cell phone, but it was like the distant buzzing of an insect, a lazy drone that didn't really bother me.

"What? No, of course I haven't read the bloody NME lately, I'm in a bus in the middle of the fucking desert, in case you hadn't noticed," she swore, her voice filtering in and out of my conscious mind as I sat watching the pixels shimmer and change colour on Emma's video game, combing my fingers gently through Thom's hair as he played the game. There was a buttery blond streak in his roots near the front of his head, and a patch of almost white-blond hair in the hair on his chin that I found endlessly fascinating. "Wait, wait, what? Who? No, that's impossible - they must mean Beth... They screwed up - you know how reliable the papers are. It's some screw up. Either that, or it's probably someone's idea of a stupid joke. Hang on, I'll ask her and call you back."

A few moments later, Amy stuck her head in the door of passage. "Kate - someone just called from MVC saying that there is a wild rumour in the NME that you've been working with Radioshack, and you're putting out a single."

"How can we be releasing a single when we're right here?" I giggled. 

"I've got a four-track down my pants," snickered Thom, turning to kiss me.

"That ain't no four-track, baby, that's a 64 track digital recording studio," I laughed. Under the influence of the tranquillisers, everything seemed vaguely funny. "That's what we've really been doing for twenty-four hours in Vegas. We went into one of those Karaoke bars and knocked out a quick album." 

"A quick one while he's away, har har," added Thom, unable to take any of this seriously, either.

Amy shook her head slowly. "They must mean Beth," she sighed. "Rumours about the film must have got out."

Thom shook his head slowly and rather drunkenly, recovering from his giggling fit. "No, she didn't actually record anything with us. The tracks we did were for Ewan MacGlashan's band. Beth was miming to Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, not us."

Amy shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Well, you know how the press is. Everything gets blown out of proportion." Pulling her cell phone out again, she punched a few numbers. "Hullo, Chris? This is Amy Cooper again. I just spoke to Kate and she says it's nonsense. They must be talking about Beth. Yes, I'll hold..."

Playing absent-mindedly with Thom's hair, I smiled down into his blue eyes, suddenly seized with a strange fear. "Wait, what about that track that we recorded at your studio? You didn't do anything with it, did you?"

Thom shook his head, his lips turning up in pleasure, practically purring like a cat. "No, the master tape is still back at the studio. You've got the only other copy on the minidisc you took with you."

"Hang on a second... Thom, what are you talking about?" interrupted Amy.

"Oh, we knocked off a song in an afternoon a couple of weeks ago," I shrugged, embarrassed that my secret had been found out. "Just as a joke, really."

"Well, it was pretty good, considering," ventured Thom. "I thought it had a lot of potential."

"So what happened to this song - where is it?" probed Amy, her eyebrows knitting together in worry.

"What, the minidisc? I left it at Damien's." I cringed at the mention of his name, my face flushing with guilt. Over the past few days, I had been trying very hard to avoid thinking about Damien.

"Well, what's the problem, anyway?" whined Thom, sitting up and shaking his head like a puppy with a flea in his ear. "I mean, why are MVC so concerned? Radioshack are on MVC, and the Charms are distributed through MVC. There's no contract violation if we work with each other."

"It's not like we ever had any intention of doing anything with it," I stuttered, though the magical pink pills were taking the edge off the rising panic.

"We weren't?" Thom looked positively disappointed.

"Yes, Chris? Hi." Amy suddenly perked up as the party on the other end of the phone picked up again. "Chris, I think we've got to the bottom of this. Kate just told me that she _did_ record a song with Thom Eboracum a few weeks ago, but they ended up not doing anything with it, and they had no intention of ever releasing it. OK?" She paused while the person on the other end burbled in her ear. "Oh? Oh, really? Heavy rotation? I'll tell the girls, they'll be delighted. Crisis solved, call me back if you need anything else... I'll talk to you later." She sighed and rolled her eyes then turned back to us with a grin. "He's got good news, as well. Hey, Emma! Beth! Maddie!" she called back towards the back of the bus. Emma appeared in the hallway, clutching a fresh bottle of vodka. "The midweeks are in - _Something's Wrong_ looks like it might just go Top Ten in the UK if sales are steady on the weekend. For a while they were worried that sales were slipping after the initial push, but they've picked up again, now that Zoe Ball has taken a shine to it..."

"Woo-hoo!" whooped Emma, taking a huge slug of vodka and throwing her head back. "Number one, here we come..."

"Emma!" I taunted. "What about our indie cred? We can't exactly maintain our indie cred with another number one record, can we?" For all the protestations she made about punk rock purity, she was just as ambitious as the rest of us under it all.

"Fuck that," she burped.

"But what I want to know," interrupted Thom, his brow creased with worry. "Is how they knew about it."

"I didn't tell anyone," I protested defensively. "Except maybe Damien, but then again, he was there when we wrote it."

"The only person I told was my girlfriend," worried Thom. "What if... no, she wouldn't. I mean, she was angry, but..."

I shook my head slowly, not even wanting to think about it. Up until now, it had been easy enough to float through the days with him without thinking about who or what we had left behind. I didn't want to think about whether this was just a brief tour fling, or something more. Even the mention of Damien's name made me feel guilty and cheap, well aware that I was doing something wrong, but unwilling or unable to stop myself. "I don't want to talk about it," I replied, very slowly and very carefully.

"What about Damien?" Thom theorised jealously. "He's such a media slut, I wouldn't put anything past him..."

"Thom!" I snapped. "I said I don't want to talk about it!" He leaned back against me, biting his lip, looking so abjectly miserable that I relented slightly. "And even if someone told the press, so what? The master tapes are locked up at your studio, right? MVC will never release them without our permission."

"I hope you're right," muttered Thom, taking another swig of his whisky.

 

Apart from the few, now familiar squabbles between Beth and Emma, there was relative peace for another few days. The tour swung back across the Southwest, playing well-received dates in small theatres in Denver, Phoenix and Albuquerque then headed for a week of shows in Texas, and finally, what we were all looking forward to - an actual day off in New Orleans.

We had been so amazingly busy between the shows and the endless promotion and the countless interviews with little local newspapers that I had barely had time to think about the tangled state of my emotional affairs. The pills that I had been scoffing like candy had helped me avoid thinking about it to a certain extent, but my supply was being depleted rapidly, and soon I would run out. When it came down to it, there was a part of me that simply didn't want a day off, because a day off would mean that I would have to face Thom, would have to face what we had done.

The ring on my finger had so far escaped notice - my engagement to Damien was already common knowledge - and everyone was far too restrained to even ask what the hell I was doing with Thom. Relations between band members were already strained enough; no one wanted to make it worse by provoking an outright fight with me. Had anyone said so much as one word to my face about Thom, I might have turned around and looked at what I was doing, but I suspected that they were quite literally scared of my reaction. Although it wasn't quite fair to place the blame for my irrational behaviour on their shoulders, it certainly made the cloud of denial on which I was floating easier to maintain.

The final Texas gig came and went, our confidences boosted by a bizarre encounter with a gang of kids who claimed to be friends with the Jackson Bollocks, who took us out drinking, then made us all pose for polaroids with a toilet plunger that had been signed by Peter Hagstrom and Courtney Tyler. Well, what the hell; why not? Thom even joined in the fun, letting me pretend to suck his brains out his ear with it for a photo, before laughingly protesting "Get that thing away from me, god knows where it's been, especially if it's been near that wanker, Courtney Tyler."

And then we were free for a gloriously dizzying 48 hours, whooping like schoolchildren as we dashed for the bus, headed for our precious holiday in New Orleans. Even on my day off, I wanted to fill my mind with action, plotting endless activities for our brief holiday. "'The cemetery tour! I want to take the cemetery tour!" I gushed, flipping through a handful of brochures that Thom had managed to obtain somewhere.

"Ooh, give me that! I want to go, too!" gushed Beth, momentarily forgetting our petty feuds.

"You can take the girl out of goth, but..." ventured Emma, but was quickly shut up by a withering glance from Beth. So much for the respite from the bickering - one offhand comment and the unease was back. "So long as we hit the Voodoo Museum, I'm happy."

"Who are you going to put a curse on, Emma?" I laughed with a clandestine glance towards Beth, trying to diffuse the situation, and we both cracked up.

"Forget it, then," snarled Beth. Tension flickered through the room, as the two of them faced off, and for a moment it seemed like they were about to explode into conflict again, but suddenly Amy's cell phone rang, distracting us all.

"Oh shit," muttered Amy, throwing the pamphlet for the Voodoo Museum back onto the table, where Emma quickly snapped it up. "Hullo... Yeah, it's me." She paused, while all of us could hear someone shouting on the other end of the line. "Hold on, hold on, slow down. _What?!_ " Waving one arm, she gestured for all of us to be quiet while she stuck a finger in her other ear. "Who? No, I've never heard of them. No... No... Hang on just a minute!" Raising her head, she pressed the hold button and glared at me. "Kate, who the hell are Tortoiseshell Records, and what is your involvement with them?" 

"I... I don't know..." I stuttered. When Amy got _that_ look in her eye, that meant it was serious. The name sounded so familiar, though. "Damien! It's Damien's label, isn't it?" I remembered. "He and Keith Alien started it as a joke, to put out their and Alex's football anthem. I don't know much about it, though. I haven't really had anything to do with it. Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

At the mention of Damien, Thom suddenly pricked up his ears, looking up from the Guide to New Orleans he'd been perusing, his face darkening perceptibly.

"Amy, what's going on?"

"Kate, you better come clean, and you better come clean now, because otherwise, you are in deep legal shit!" she threatened.

"I swear to god, I know nothing!" I protested innocently, wondering what the hell the relevance of this was. "Would someone please let me in on what the hell is going on?"

"Hang on, just a minute!" snarled Amy at her cellphone as the other line clicked. "Jesus Christ, Kate. Tortoiseshell Records have just released a single called _Co-dependent Love Song,_ claiming to be written and performed by you and Thom there... Yes, this is Amy Cooper. Hullo?"

"Oh, shit," whimpered Thom, flopping onto his back and pulling his knees up to his chin, as if attempting to roll himself into a little, tiny ball. "I knew it. I fucking knew it..."

"They what? Well, that's... yes, I'll hold." With a deft movement, she switched back to the other line. "Yes, I'm back. Kate claims she knows nothing about it. No, I don't know!" she snapped, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. "Is there any way we can get an injunction to stop it from coming out? What do you mean, it's _already_ out? Bloody hell, they didn't even ask or anything? Oh, hang on, there's the other line again." It was amazing how she managed to balance three conversations simultaneously without getting lost. "No, I didn't hang up. Your line went dead. I'm still on the other line with my office, Chris. Look, we were blindsided by this as much as you were. Kate told us nothing..."

"I knew nothing!" I protested.

"Hang on!" she barked. "What?"

"I knew nothing about it! Thom and I recorded it a couple of weeks ago - I left the bloody minidisc at Damien's house - I had no idea he'd do anything with it, and I certainly didn't have anything to do with it!"

Amy paused, throwing me the fisheye before hitting her hold button again. "Hang on a minute, Chris. Gail, can we get Tortoiseshell Records on the phone?" Pause. "I don't fucking care! Get me Damien Fucking Hearse, then!" Pause. "Then get me this fucking Dale person - get me someone - anyone at that end who can tell me what the fuck they are doing releasing a Charms solo project without asking either their management or their record label!" As her eyes swept the room, they suddenly fell on Thom, still curled in a ball on the floor. "What about Radioshack's management? Has anyone contacted them?"

Suddenly Thom sat bolt upright, his eyes filled with terror. "Oh, crap. I've got to call our manager. He doesn't know where I am..." He paused for a moment, staring out the window. "On second thought, maybe it's best that no one knows where I am."

"Gail, get Radioshack's manager on the phone..."

"Don't tell them I'm here, please! I'm not going back in the fucking studio, not again, not yet," begged Thom, but Amy quieted him with a wave of her hand. 

"You are not my problem, Thom. Quite frankly, I don't give a shit whether you want to talk to your manager or not, but we've got to open some sort of professional dialogue to cover our asses in case someone decides to get lawsuit happy."

"Just don't tell them that I am here," he pleaded.

Amy looked him up and down, then shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I could care less. Shit, wait a minute, Gail, I gotta go. I've still got MVC on hold on the other line..." With a guilty expression, she hit the button yet again. "Chris, are you there? Yeah, sorry about that, that was my office again. We are trying to get a hold of Tortoiseshell records..." She paused. "Oh, damn. OK, OK, Chris, wait just a minute. We've got some more information now. The company that released this thing is owned by Kate's fiancé."

Thom twitched slightly and wheezed like an asthmatic gasping for breath, but said nothing, causing Amy to wince visibly.

"No, no, wait, hear me out... No, Kate says that she knew nothing about it. She left a minidisc of the material she and Thom had been working on at his apartment before she left on tour... It was just a demo of some songs they put together on a lark! No, it was not intended for release. It was a fucking demo, Chris!" she repeated, growing angry that he had not understood the first time. "I don't know what Damien Fucking Hearse was thinking! No, for the umpteenth time, he did not even try to contact us! This is the first I've damned well heard of it! In case you hadn't noticed, we've been in a fucking bus, criss-crossing the fucking State of Texas for the past week or so..." She paused, slowly turning bright red. "I'm sorry, Chris, I didn't know that you were Texan. No offence intended." Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the back of the seat. "We just left Dallas a few hours ago, and we're on our way to New Orleans... Do you want to try to do that, then? Get your boss to grab a red-eye flight down to New Orleans and we'll meet and discuss our options in the morning. Yes." Pause. "No, I have not been able to get a hold of Mr. Hearse."

Thom bristled at the name, rolling over and moving closer toward me, as if trying to establish ownership simply by proximity.

"I have not spoken to Radioshack's management yet," she continued, opening her eyes and looking over at Thom, who still refused sullenly to meet her gaze. "Thom Eboracum has gone on an unscheduled holiday?" she asked with feigned surprise, glaring at Thom. "Not answering his mobile phone? Even his management can't get hold of him?"

Squirming like a little boy accepting a punishment, Thom sighed deeply, then lowered his head to his knees, announcing in a tiny voice "You can tell them, if you need to."

"He is not missing. I know exactly where he is. I can assure you with utmost certainty that he will be at the meeting tomorrow." Raising her eyebrows and baring her teeth, she muttered "He will be at the meeting tomorrow, or I, personally will have his little ginger hide!" over the top of the phone. "No, nothing. He'll be there. You can count on it. We will meet with your boss tomorrow, then." As she hung up, folded the cellphone and put it back in her pocket, she lowered her head and covered her face with her hands, rubbing her eyes vigorously.

"Amy, is it that bad? What's going on?" I asked worriedly. No matter what we threw at her, nothing ever seemed to faze Amy. If she seemed this upset, I expected the worst.

"I might just ask you the same question, Kate," she finally replied, looking up and staring at me.

"Amy, how many times do I have to tell you that this is as much of a surprise to me as it is to you..." I started, but she cut me off.

"Next time you decide to work outside the Charms - I don't care if it's just singing happy birthday at your son's fucking birthday party - I want you to tell me, the moment it fucking happens! I don't ever want to be placed in this position again!" she snapped, with uncharacteristic anger.

"Look, it's not Kate's fault," Thom protested, coming to my defence. "It was totally my idea to record..."

"Shut up, Jeremy, I've never known Kate to do nothing she doesn't want..."

It seemed like an innocent slip, given how much time Jeremy had spent on our tourbus, but Thom bristled as if he'd been slapped. "I'm not Jeremy fucking Kane, thank you very much, no matter what the press say about our first album!"

"Sorry, Jer... Al... Dame... Thom," Amy stuttered in a non-apology I couldn't work out was a deliberate swipe at me or not. It sure felt like one, so I went on the attack myself, deflecting my irritation onto my warring bandmates.

"What about Beth? It's OK for her to waltz off and go make a fucking movie with Ewan MacGlashan and not tell anyone, but I record one song with a friend during a drunken afternoon, and I'm in breach of contract?"

"What?" snapped Maddie, suddenly looking over at Beth. "You worked with _who_?"

"For a start," interrupted Amy. "I knew about Beth's film project, because she cleared it with me first, even though she asked me to keep it a secret."

"You what?" Maddie practically snarled, looking back and forth between Amy and Beth, her face twisted with anger and betrayal. "How could you, Beth? How fucking could you? All this time, you've been bitching to me about Kate and Thom this, and Kate and Thom that, and all this time, you've been stabbing me in the back with Ewan fucking MacGlashan?"

"You've been bitching about me behind my back, have you?" I growled.

"Look, what am I supposed to do?" defended Beth. "I got offered a very prestigious film role - the chance of a fucking lifetime to make my screen debut. Am I supposed to turn it down because of your marital indiscretion with my leading man?"

Maddie whirled around to face me. "You told her? You fucking told her?"

If it was coming out, it was all coming out. "Well, Jesus Christ, Maddie, it was just more than a tad hypocritical of you to jump down Beth's throat over Gary when you were the pot calling the kettle black. Especially now you seem to be trying to get on the same fucking high horse with me over Thom?"

"Shut up!" screamed Amy at the top of her lungs, standing up. "All of you, just _SHUT UP_!"

There was complete silence for a few moments, until the stillness was broken by an audibly plastered Emma giggling "All of you stop fighting this minute, or I'm turning this tour bus around and we're going back to Dallas!"

Amy cracked a smile for a moment, then rapidly regained control of herself. "Just stop it, all of you. Whatever personal problems you may have with each other, I think you are old enough to work out by yourselves. But Kate and Thom have a much bigger legal problem to work out right now."

"And what does all this crap have to do with us?" sniped Beth.

"Absolutely nothing. In fact, if you can't shut up so we can figure this mess out, can you all please go in the back lounge and watch a fucking movie without killing each other?" implored Amy.

The others said nothing, but remained quietly where they were. I would have liked to have believed that it was a silent show of solidarity, but the truth probably was that they wanted to vicariously rubberneck at whatever trouble it was that my twisted and complicated love life had finally got me into.

"Kate, do you have the faintest idea how much trouble you are in right now? Thom, you, too, but it's not my job to tell you that. MVC is out for blood. Or rather, not blood, but money. If it were some little tiny indie thing, they might not care..."

"But it is some little tiny indie label!" I protested. "Damien doesn't know the first thing about the record industry!"

"He might not know anything about the record industry, but he sure as hell knows about promotion, and this thing has gone into the charts - in fact, it charted just higher than the official single. Despite the radio airplay, _Something's Wrong_ has slipped down several places since the midweeks, and they are justifiably angry."

Though I could not help but smile with some strange sense of smug satisfaction, Beth let out her breath in a low long whistle, her competitive streak piqued.

"MVC are utterly furious. You know the first rule of record releases - never, ever have two concurrent releases by the same artist that will interfere with each others' sales. Why the hell do you think it was so carefully orchestrated that _Ice Cream Saturday_ would be withdrawn before _Bizarre Love Triangle_ was released?"

"I know all this! Why are you yelling at me? I had absolutely nothing to do with it!" I protested, feeling uncomfortably like a child being admonished for an offence I had not committed.

"Listen to me for once, instead of trying to rationalise everything away with excuses. You could still be sued over this, Kate. Have you ever heard of Breach of Contract?"

"But that's absurd, Amy. I mean, that's if you wilfully go off and violate your contract. They can't sue me for breach of contract over this any more than they could sue The Charms because someone put out a bootleg."

"That's exactly it, Kate. That's exactly how they are viewing this record, legally. A bootleg. No one is going to believe that you had nothing to do with it for the simple reason that it was released by your fucking fiancé."

Thom turned away, his face twisting in agony every time she said the word.

"They can't sue me," I shrugged. "In order for there to be Breach of Contract, there has to be money exchanged, and there hasn't been. Damien just doesn't have the faintest clue how the record industry works. He's never read a recording contract, he probably had no idea of the legal red tape involved with putting out a record by an artist on another label..."

"Kate, ignorance of the law does not excuse anything. And you can't tell me that there's not money involved. Damien is probably making a packet off this. You do know that as his fiancée, you are legally complicit..."

"She is not his fiancée!" exploded Thom, unable to bear it any longer. "So please stop calling her that. She's not Damien Hearse's fucking fiancée, she's _my_ fucking wife!"

The room grew so quiet that all I could hear for several seconds was my own heartbeat and the soft throb of engine noise in the background, as four sets of eyes darted back and forth between Thom and myself.

"What? Is this true?" Amy glared at me, her face wide with surprise. "When did this happen?"

I remained quiet, afraid to confess that I did not actually even know for certain, staring down at my feet, Thom's hand grasped firmly in mine.

"In Las Vegas," Thom finally supplied. "We got married at the Elvis Chapel last week."

" _What?_ Oh god, and this is why Damien is doing this, then?" postulated Amy, pushing her glasses up on her head to rub her eyes. "He's trying to get back at you?"

"No, he doesn't know," I explained in a tiny voice. That much I was fairly sure of.

"Please... don't tell anyone. It's supposed to be a secret," added Thom, moving closer and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. The pair of us must have looked like the most miserable and unhappy newlyweds in the world.

Amy paused and took a deep breath. "Why?"

"I... I..." stuttered Thom, refusing to meet her gaze or anyone else's. "I don't want my girlfriend... ex-girlfriend..." he corrected. "...to find out this way. Not through the press, like this." From the way he shifted uncomfortably, his body pulling away from me slightly, I could tell this was not the whole truth.

"Thom, I need a word with you. Alone!" barked Amy, picking up her cell phone and handing it to him as the two of them walked back towards the other lounge. "You're the one who's got to call your management and tell them this."


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the unscheduled release of Kate and Thom's solo record by Damien's record company threatens to blow over into legal and emotional disaster, three of the Charms rally together for some much needed heart to hearts. But the other Charms have severe doubts about the nature of her relationship with Thom, and tell her dark allegations she doesn't want to hear, as the strain of her separation from Damien starts to hit home, with news from Damien himself.
> 
> Content warning for implied domestic violence.

"I can't fucking believe this," swore Beth, standing up and kicking her chair with perhaps excessive force, once Amy had left the lounge with Thom, contritely, following behind like a little boy kicking stones. "I can't believe any of this, Kate! After all this fucking act you've been pulling about how immature Emma and I have been acting and...'

"You said it, not me," I snarled back.

"It's you who's the one who's gone and screwed us all behind our backs with your little vanity solo project there!" she threw back at me.

"This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the band!" I protested. "This is between me and Thom, and that's it!"

"Actually, it's between you, and Thom, and Damien, and our record company," pointed out Maddie, still looking back and forth between Beth and I with a hurt expression, as if not sure which of us to be more angry at. But when Beth tossed her hair and stormed from the room, I noticed that she made no move to follow.

"Look, I'm sorry, Maddie," I sighed quietly in apology, turning to her and placing my hand on her elbow. "I shouldn't have betrayed your confidence, but..."

"No." She shook her head slowly, turning her huge, liquid brown eyes towards me. "It's OK. It actually feels better having it out in the open like this. A band shouldn't keep secrets like this, or shit like this happens. But..." Her eyes swept back towards the door through which Beth had just disappeared. "She knew how I felt about him, regardless of knowing why, and she should have at least had the decency to tell us she was doing this. I mean, regardless of Ewan, she should have told us about the film."

"I understand her reasons for not telling us, but..." Leaning forwards, I put my head into my hands and rubbed my temples, but suddenly winced as I brushed against the faded bruise I'd forgotten around the edge of my eye, still sore a week later.

"Kate," hissed Emma, catching my hand and pulling it away. "This is the first time I've got you alone. He's not here now, so would you care to tell me how the hell you got that black eye?"

"What black eye?" I stuttered awkwardly, seizing my hand back from her.

"The black eye you got in Vegas when you got married."

"I... I..." I stuttered awkwardly, stumbling around the awful truth that I simply didn't know. "Wait, how the hell did you know that I got it when I got married?" I suddenly noticed.

"Kate, don't be ridiculous..." She paused for a moment as she slowly realised that I was serious. "I saw you two just before you... Don't you remember this?"

I lowered my face, contemplating the carpet, then looked back up, scouring her face for any sign or indication that she could give me a clue as to what had happened during the 48 hours I was missing, but her face was inscrutable. Glancing back towards the corridor to make sure that Thom was still otherwise occupied, I leaned forward, lowering my voice. "Can you keep a secret? I swear to god, you have to promise not to tell a soul."

"Look, we've just been through how dangerous that can be..." ventured Maddie, but Emma nodded.

"Kate, what is it?"

"Emma, I don't remember. That's exactly the point," I confessed.

"Well, we were all pretty drunk," laughed Emma. "This whole tour has been a bit of a blur to me."

"No, I mean, I remember nothing. It's not just a pleasant, hazy drunken blur - I remember absolutely nothing. A complete blackout. From the time we stopped to get that Vodka, until I woke up in Las Vegas."

Emma's face slowly fell as she realised what I was saying. "Kate, I was with you guys in Las Vegas. You were drunk - I was aware of that much - but I distinctly remember asking you if you were... you know, OK to be making that decision."

"What did I say?" I probed.

Emma laughed. "You yelled at me to fuck off and get out of your business. I didn't agree, but I knew better than to ask you twice."

I couldn't help but cackle dispiritedly at the sick irony, then looked up at her with a pleading expression. "Emma, what happened?"

"I don't remember a lot of the details," hedged Emma, looking down at the tips of her shoes as if she were hiding something.  She paused, searching for a pack of cigarettes in her jacket. When had Emma started smoking again? Was this tour that bad? She had spent the past year railing against cigarette companies as monstrously evil corporations, how could she have picked up the habit again? This was obviously difficult for her, ratting on Thom when she was so obviously fond of him. "You were fighting. He started going on and on, like he does, in his maudlin little self pity party about the futility of life, and we're all going to hell in a handbag, and nobody loves him, everybody hates him, he's going to eat some worms, worms, worms, the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, you _know_ how he gets..."

I had to laugh at her keen impression of him, almost relieved that someone else had noticed how difficult he could be, but it was a dry laugh, with little humour. "I know the argument well."

"You said you were going outside to get some air. Thom sat for a few minutes, drinking with me, then got up and followed you. You two were gone for some time - maybe half an hour, then when you came back, you had a black eye and he had two gold rings."

"Do you remember anything else? It's important, Emma! Please!" Any scrap, any clue as to the mental state which had convinced me that this was an even vaguely good idea.

"I just remember thinking you looked tired and worn out. I mean, all three of us had been up for two days straight or something at that point." She looked to Maddie for support of corroboration, but Maddie remained silent, quietly taking all of this in without commenting.

"Sleep deprivation, emotional duress, mixing alcohol and tranquillisers - I'm surprised I could walk at that point," I flipped back snidely.

Suddenly Maddie piped up. "Do you love him, Kate?"

"Who, Thom?" I asked, surprised at the question. "I... I don't know." Maddie eyed me strangely, so I quickly tried to recover. "I used to think that love was that huge, overpowering emotion that made all the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and your stomach prickle with butterflies. But no, that's just infatuation, and that wears off."

"That's lust, more likely," agreed Emma with a chuckle.

"But then, when I..." I paused, unable to get the words out of my mouth. "When I met Damien, it wasn't like that. It was this slow, creeping thing that slowly grew until I didn't think that I could ever live without him... But then again, if I could turn my back on that so easily, obviously that wasn't real, that wasn't love, either, was it? So it's not that I don't know if I love Thom or not, it's simply that I don't even think that I even know what love is any more."

Maddie stared at me, her eyes boring into mine as if trying to measure my words, but she skipped the moral and jumped straight to the climax. "Does Thom know?"

"Know what?" _Does he know that I don't love him? Yes, and it scares him to death. He wouldn't have tried to bind me to him if he hadn't been terrified of the idea._

"Does he know the judgement impaired circumstances under which you entered the marriage?" explained Maddie with a long-suffering sigh.

"Do you have to sound so clinical and so legal?" I moaned, though I was relieved that the terrible secret was finally out in the open.

"Kate, marriage, apart from everything else that it is, is a legal and binding contract. Any other agreement signed under such conditions would not stand up in a court of law..." Maddie replied calmly. Marriage and divorce was something she apparently knew a lot about.

"It's not about a legal matter!" I insisted, letting the rest of the sentence fall unfinished as Thom stalked into the room, his face a storm cloud.

"It is a legal matter now," sighed Thom, falling down on the couch beside me and burying his face in my lap. "Our manager is threatening to sue Tortoiseshell Records unless the single is recalled immediately, to protect ourselves from being sued by MVC."

"Oh my god, has anyone actually managed to speak to Damien?" I sighed, rapidly trying to cover the topic of our previous conversation. Thom merely glared at me.

It was then I noticed that he was still holding Amy's phone between his hands. "Give me the phone, I'll ring him.

"You've had his phone number all along?" accused Thom. I could see the jealousy flash in his eyes.

"It's his private line. I wasn't about to give that to Amy or MVC fucking Records." Picking the phone up, I dialled the international calling code, and the now familiar number, but was surprised to drop directly into Damien's voice mail. What a time for him to turn his phone off. Then again, more likely, the battery had gone dead. Somewhere inside me, a jealous bone twisted in anguish as I remembered the only circumstances under which Damien turned off his cell phone. "Damien, it's Kate. Please, call either me or Amy as soon as you get this message. We're all in deep shit over this single. Please call me. I'm on a cell phone - the number's 917-555-4228. Call me!"

Thom scowled at me. "You didn't say anything about us..."

"So what am I supposed to do? Leave the message on his ansaphone? Oh, that's cold, Thom. Besides, I don't see you exactly rushing to phone your ex-girlfriend to tell her the happy news."

Thom bristled, though I noticed he did not sit up, merely rolling over to look directly into my face. "She's been trying to get a hold of me, calling my manager. He had to tell her he didn't have the faintest clue where I was. He was on the verge of filing a missing persons report, except for her conviction that I was with you. I suppose she knows me too well."

Conflicting emotions whirled around inside me. Under normal circumstances, this statement would have inspired a veritable hissy fit of jealousy, but I felt confused and sick with worry, and half of me almost _wanted_ Thom to go back to her.

"Why? Does she want you back?" I tossed off defiantly, hoping that the flippancy in my voice covered my panic.

"I don't know, I didn't talk to her." He sounded angry, yet at the same time, it was plain that he desperately wanted to hear something from me, though what it was, I wasn't sure. Was it that he wanted out of this farcical marriage as badly as I did, but was afraid to say so for fear of hurting me?

"Do _you_ want _her_ back?" I probed.

"Hell no!" he snarled, leaping to his feet and pacing back and forth, his arms folded across his chest in rage and defiance.

"Then what _do_ you want?" I continued.

Thom said nothing, but glared back and forth between Emma and Maddie as if actively willing them from the room.

"Maybe we should leave these two alone," Maddie suggested diplomatically, rising to her feet and gesturing back with her head towards the rear lounge.

"I'm not going in there!" exploded Emma, then stopped herself. "Fucking hell, this is ridiculous. I refuse to be intimidated out of my own fucking tourbus. It's as much mine as it is theirs, but I can't go in the back lounge cause Her fucking Highness is back there, and I can't go in the front lounge cause Kate and Thom are having a couple moment. Where the fuck am I supposed to do? Lock myself in the can? Take an extended nap in my fucking claustrophobic coffin of a bunk bed? Come on."

"Emma, please..." soothed Maddie, but Emma was inconsolable.

"Don't fucking _Emma, please_ me! I am not a child. Everyone else around here is acting like a fucking two year old, well, it's my turn now." Flopping herself down in her customary chair, she flipped on her videogame and started to play. When that hideous bleeping music started, it meant she was completely ignoring the rest of the world.

"Emma!" scolded Maddie sharply, but I cut her off.

"No, Maddie, leave her alone. She's got a point. We can have this discussion later, Thom."

"What discussion? There's nothing to bloody well talk about!" snarled Thom. "It seems like everything is out of our hands at this point," he shrugged, kicking a cushion out of his way with barely controlled rage before stalking off down the corridor and hurling himself into our sleeping compartment to stew.

For a long time, there was complete silence, apart from the steady bleeping of Emma's videogame, but finally Maddie ventured, in a small voice "Aren't you going to go and talk to him?"

"About what? He doesn't seem to think there's anything to talk about," I spat.

"Kate..." Maddie moved towards me, slumping against the couch and wrapping her arm familiarly around my shoulder. "From one married woman to another, let me let you in on a little secret. The biggest ingredient in a marriage is not love, or sex or any of that nonsense. It's compromise."

I blinked at her in disbelief, realising that with one impetuous mistake, I had somehow joined into some secret solidarity of women and wives. Somewhere in the background, the Tupperware and the minivans beckoned, but at that moment, it felt comforting instead of terrifying. "Compromise on what? I don't even know what he's angry about any more."

Maddie shrugged, with a resigned little half smile. "Does it really matter? Who can tell what goes on in their heads half the time. What you've got to remember is that the marriage - the relationship - is something that's bigger and more important than either of you." I stared at Maddie strangely, wondering when she'd become such a fountain of wisdom. "Which means that sometimes you've just got to take your pride in your hands, go to him and apologise, even if you don't think you've done anything wrong."

"Do you think I've done something wrong?" I demanded of her, raising my hands in frustration. "Apart from marry the fucker in the first place," I added, almost under my breath.

Maddie looked at me sharply. "That's for you two to decide. I mean, do you love him?" She paused, watching me play with the ring on my finger. The first few days I had worn it, it had seemed alien, unnatural, but now it seemed almost like a part of me. "You said earlier that you didn't know if you loved him because you didn't know what love was, but..."

I rolled my eyes and sighed loudly, unwilling to endure some lecture about my irresponsibility.

"No, listen to me, Kate. You know, in a way, I agree with a lot of the things you said. You are absolutely right when you say that that sweaty-palmed butterfly-stomached feeling of infatuation is not love. It can lead to it, but it's not the thing in itself."

"Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out," I flipped back sarcastically, ignoring the long years of heartbreak and disappointment it had taken me to realise it.

"In fact, I think most of romantic love is a myth," she confessed.

"I'm with you there," piped up Emma, indicating that she was paying more attention to the conversation than she was letting on. Turning around, she grimaced wryly. "It's an invention of the popular media to sell toothpaste and power ballads."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far. I'm not quite _that_ cynical. Yet," she added with a bitter smile. "But, Kate, I keep seeing you rushing from one great love affair to the next." I bristled at the implication, but remained silent. "It's almost like you keep waiting for the love of your life to sweep you off your feet and take you away to this magical land where everything is perfect without your ever having to lift a finger."

Emma burst into a fit of giggles, but wisely stopped herself, holding her hand over her mouth. "Sorry. I just got this image of... oh, never mind."

"That's how it works in the fairy tales, in the realm of happily ever after, but in real life, it's not so easy. There is no great love of your life with whom everything will be perfect without ever having rough spots. You just have to find a person that you are compatible with, and make it work from there."

"You're not telling me anything that I don't know," I growled defensively, my feathers ruffled at how much this was starting to sound like the talk that Damien and I had had only a few weeks previously on his rooftop, the morning after our engagement. Was it only weeks ago? A month at the most. How could I have screwed up my life so badly in less than a month?

"Kate, you're not even listening to me, are you?" demanded Maddie, shaking my attention back to her. "I think you know it with your head, but you don't know it with your heart."

"So what are you trying to tell me?" I demanded, beginning to grow annoyed at the unsolicited advice.

"I give up!" she sighed, throwing her hands in the air. "I just give up. You just don't _want_ to hear, do you?"

"She's telling you that for once in your life you need to sit down and work things out, rather than running away at the first sign of trouble. Stop flitting from man to man, and actually see something through for a change," supplied Emma with characteristic bluntness.

_It's a little too late for that,_ I thought to myself, curling up in a little ball on the couch, resting my head on my knees. The person I needed to sit down and see things through with was Damien. What was done was done, I couldn't change the past. But I could change the present, and I could stop the same mistakes from happening again. Raising my head, I looked about the tiny room, then slowly climbed to my feet and padded down the hall. Pulling back the curtain, I lowered myself into the bunk and then stretched myself out alongside the prone form lying in a crumpled heap.

"Hi," I finally ventured, after convincing myself by the irregularity of his breathing that he was not asleep.

"Hi," he returned, rolling over to face me.

"Do you want to talk?" I offered, not knowing what else to say.

"Not really."

I paused, listening to the laboured sound of his breathing, but the silence seemed pregnant with unspoken tension. "What are you thinking about?"

"My girlf..." he started to say, but cut himself off. "Ex-girlfriend."

_Did she even have a name?_ I wondered to myself, then stopped myself before I could degenerate into base jealousy. "Thom..." His name fell into the silence like a perfectly round stone dropped into a pond. "It's not too late to go back, if you want to. We can still... we can still walk away from this. Nobody knows, except the other Charms, and Amy, and they can keep a secret. It'll be like it never happened, and you can walk away and go back to your girlfriend, if that is what you want," I offered.

There was a long silence permeated only by the unsteady wheezing of his breath before he responded. "Is that what you want?" His voice sounded flat and dead, completely emotionless.

I paused. It would be so easy to just turn around and walk away, pretend that none of it had ever happened, but Maddie's and Emma's words rankled uneasily in my ears. For once in my life, I did need to sit down and work through something and finish it, rather than running away when things got tough.

"I..." The words choked in my mouth, but I got them out. "I don't know."

There was the brief rustle of sheets, and he moved closer, wrapping his arms around my waist and nuzzling his head into my chest as if all this time he'd only been waiting for me to reassure him.

"It's been hours, we should be in New Orleans soon," I offered limply, trying to change the subject, clutching his head close and stroking his hair.

 

 

The tension had not lifted in the slightest by the time we got to New Orleans and checked into our hotel, though it was well past midnight. If anything, it was thicker because the mood had congealed and settled. At the time, booking separate rooms had seemed like a luxury, but now it seemed like a necessity as first Beth then Emma disappeared to sulk. Maddie hung around for a few minutes, staring concernedly at Thom and I, then disappeared to call her own husband, patting me reassuringly on the arm as she left. 

"What time is it in England?" I inquired plaintively of Thom as I pulled off my dress and slipped into my negligee.

"Around 10am," he shrugged, settling down on the edge of the bed. "Why?"

"I'm wondering why Damien hasn't called back."

"Jesus Christ..." he swore, flopping back onto the bed and putting his hands to his head.

"Do you want to get sued?" I shot back in annoyance. He remained silent, withdrawing into a sullen sulk. "What the hell is your problem, Thom?" I snarled, taking out my rage and frustration on the object nearest me, picking up my bag off the chair and hurling it onto the floor, throwing myself down into the vacated seat.

"What is _my_ problem?" he snapped, sitting up, his eyes flashing. "Damien bloody Hearse is _our_ problem, and I don't want you talking to him."

"I don't see what else we can do," I whimpered, putting my head into my hands. I wasn't exactly looking forward to talking to him, and Thom's insecurity was only feeding my fear.

" _Find_ something else!" ordered Thom. "There's two people in this marriage, not three."

"Or four," I muttered, thinking of his nameless girlfriend.

A sudden knock at the door interrupted us before the fight could turn ugly. "Kate..." Amy's voice rang out hesitantly before the door swung inward. "Kate, I have Damien on my cell phone. He wants to talk to you..."

"Shit..." I muttered under my breath, gesturing wildly until Amy put him on hold.

"Hang on a minute, Damien..." She paused, staring expectantly towards me.

"I can't talk to him right now, Amy. Please, can you tell him about the lawsuit and..."

"He knows about the lawsuit. He wants to talk to you," she insisted, holding the cell phone towards me. Thom glared at me.

I eyed it apprehensively, as if it were a deadly weapon. "Amy, please, not now. Can't you just tell him..."

"Hang on, Damien, can you call back in a minute," she interrupted, walking over to the hotel phone and reading him the number.

"What did you do that for?" I whined.

"I don't want to listen to you whining on my cell phone bill. I've told Damien the legal ins and outs of the problem with MVC, but he wants to talk to you, and I would heartily encourage _you_ to talk to _him_ ," replied Amy in an overly controlled voice.

"But can't you tell him..."

"Look, I've told him the legal aspects. The rest..." she paused, letting the full effect of this word sink in, so there was no doubt in my mind what she was referring to. "...is up to you."

"Amy, I can't talk to him now," I pleaded, my mind in a panic. What the hell was I supposed to say? _I'm sorry Damien, I can't talk to you right now because I've thrown you over for a man I'm not even sure that I like right now._ The phone started to ring, its insistent bleating sending me into a panic, but neither Thom nor I moved to answer.

On about the fifth of sixth ring, Amy lunged towards it and picked it up. "Hullo? Yeah, sure, Damien, hang on." Turning toward me, she held out the receiver.

I shook my head wildly, waving my hands. "I can't!" I hissed, too low to hear on the other end of the phone, but loud enough to attract Thom's attention. "Please, Amy, you're my manager..."

Amy stared back and forth between Thom and I, the anger boiling to a head on her face as she slowly lowered the receiver, pressing the hold button, then laying it down on the nightstand next to the phone. "I took this job because in the end, despite all the grief and all the worry, and everything else, I find it immensely fulfilling. When the lights go down, and you four girls walk onstage, and a thousand kids in the audience start screaming their heads off, I feel _proud_ , because I know that I'm the one that made sure you got here. In the two years that I've been working with you, I've accepted the fact that that means I have to be a manager, a personal assistant, a secretary, an amateur psychologist, an agony aunt, and even on occasion, your fucking mom. But there comes a point where I have to draw a fucking line, I will _not_ lie to your lovers for you, Kate. Some things you have to take care of yourself, Kate, and you got yourself into this, and only you can get yourself out." With her head erect, but her knuckles white from the fists her fingers had twisted themselves into, she whirled around and strode from the room.

Glancing around wildly, my gaze fell on Thom, biting his lip and playing intently with the ring on his finger, but he refused to meet my eyes, suddenly unfolding himself from the bed and making a purposeful dash for the bathroom.

"Thom!" I screamed, but I heard the door slam and the lock click. "Thom, don't you dare just lock yourself in there. This is your problem now, too, Thom. _Thommmm!_ " I wailed, but he remained silent. I could picture him, crumpled in a corner, his knees pulled up to his chin like a foetus, and his arms over his head. The water of panic was rising fast, I was in over my head, and control was spinning even further out of my grasp, like a car out of control.

"I'm not here. This is not happening," I told myself resolutely, but the blinking light on the phone dragged me back to reality and the man waiting patiently at the other end of the very expensive long distance phone line. With a heavy heart, feeling like I was picking up the gun for an execution, I picked up the receiver and pressed the hold button. "Damien? Hi."

"Kate, my dear. How are you holding up?' he blustered, the mere sound of his voice, as warm and hearty as the day I left, tearing me apart inside. He sounded so calm and unperturbed, completely oblivious to the shock awaiting him.

"Um... not too well..." My voice was shaking, on the verge of tears.

"Oh, it's not that bad," he assured me, in his gruff but soothing tone. "I've got a fast-talking American lawyer who assured me that the thing is selling so well that they'll probably drop the lawsuit if we offer them a cut of the profits." He could always make everything go away simply by making a few phone calls. 

"But why did you do it in the first place, Damien?" I sobbed.

"I wanted it to be a surprise for you when you came home - to see your song in the Charts. You were so proud of it... I knew you two would never have the guts to release it yourself, so I did it for you," he teased.

_You two._ The words twisted like a knife in my gut. How could he possibly have known? "But did you not think about how much trouble this would get me in over my recording contract?" I protested, anxious to talk about anything but the subject weighing so heavily on my heart.

"I had no idea!" he asserted innocently. "I thought it would be breaking your contract if I released an unauthorised Charms record, but this isn't the Charms. How was I supposed to know that your contract covered your solo material, as well?" 

He always had an answer for everything, didn't he? There was no mess he could not possibly talk himself out of, was there? Every bone in my body cried out for him to just take me in his arms and make everything better again. Sick and in love and abjectly miserable, I flopped over onto the mattress, staring up at the ceiling in desolation.

Catching something in the tone of my silence, he stopped. "Are you alright, Katie?"

"No!" I wailed, then caught myself before I burst out crying. "I've been sick, I've been really ill."

"Oh," he cooed. "My poor baby. If you were here, I'd order you some soup and make you a hot water bottle."

How could he be so sweet and so affectionate and so oblivious? If he said anything more, I was simply going to burst out crying. I hated myself all the more for still loving him, then tried to twist the emotion around on itself, blaming him for not calling me, for not writing back, for abandoning me... "Damien, why did you not call me?" I moaned. "I've been on tour for weeks, and I haven't heard from you."

"I thought you didn't like phones," he replied, sounding a bit shocked at the sentiment. "Besides, I didn't want to crowd you. You seemed to want... well, space, so I thought I better let you have it." He paused, weighing his words carefully before suddenly blurting out. "I've missed you terribly, you know."

That was it - I could no longer hold the tears back from pouring down my face. Although I'd somehow managed to convince myself that I no longer loved him and didn't miss him at all, at that moment I knew it was all a lie.

"What's the matter, Kate? You sound like you're crying," he observed, his voice soft and tender.

Glancing around to make sure Thom was still in the bathroom, I leaned over, shielding the mouthpiece of the phone with my hand as I urgently whispered. "I love you, Damien, and I always will. No matter what else happens, just remember that. It's always been you that I love."

"Kate..." Damien sounded confused, but I could hear the handle of the bathroom door rattling as if Thom were unlatching the lock.

"I have to go," I sputtered, looking around wildly. "I love you. Goodbye." I hung up just as Thom emerged from the bathroom, his eyes flashing angrily, though they were still red, as if he'd been crying.

For a long minute, we eyed each other cautiously, while I tried to figure out whether he had overheard or not, but finally he demanded "Did you tell him?"

I contemplated screaming _I told Damien nothing, because I still love him and I want out of this travesty of a marriage right now_ at him, but the wildness in his eyes frightened me. "Yes."

Thom stopped in his tracks, the corners of his mouth turning up in an unmistakably proud hint of a grin. Calming down, he padded over to the bed and crawled in next to me. But as soon as he reached for me, I pushed him away and rolled over, wanting simply to be alone with my despair.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate and Thom are called on the carpet, to answer their record label's ire about their unscheduled solo record... Only for Kate to discover she has an old friend in high places. An old friend who in some ways, knows more about her own band than she does - and drops a bombshell that explains her bandmates' wars.

I dreamed about Damien that night. Not even deep, symbolic dreams, but simple, sweet memories, playing over and over in my head like home movies; the sound of his laugh, the feel of his stubble against my cheek, the rich, sparkling blue of his eyes in sunlight.

When I awoke, the warmth was gone, and I felt strangely chilled despite the arm clamped tightly around my waist. With a start, I realised that Thom had kicked the covers off during the night, leaving us exposed to the chill of the overly aggressive air conditioner, though instead of waking and pulling the covers back up, he had instinctively clung to me even tighter for warmth. Shivering slightly, it took a few moments to identify that the phone was ringing, shaking me out of my early morning daze.

"Hullo?" I croaked, trying to shrug Thom off me to move closer to the phone, though he followed me doggedly, clinging to my waist like a frightened child.

"Miss Gordon? I'm calling from MVC New Orleans to inform you that we are sending a car for you in an hour."

"Yeah, yeah, thanks. We'll be there," I grunted, sitting up and trying to wipe the sleep from my eyes. "Come on, Thom, wake up..."

"Time to face judge, jury and executioner," he mumbled, then made his bleary way to the bathroom, locking himself in before I had a chance to protest. How the fuck had I married such a bathroom hog?

An hour and a half later, the two of us were sitting, freshly scrubbed but bleary-eyed, in the generically hip waiting room of the MVC offices in a skyscraper in the business district of New Orleans. Thom had been unusually quiet all morning, chewing worriedly on his nails until they were right down to the quick.

"I'm sorry this is taking so long," burbled the same secretary whose voice I recognised from our early morning wake-up call. "The new Director of A&R at MVC has dropped by unexpectedly, and we are trying to find him a suitable office. Help yourself to some coffee if you like."

"The Director of A&R?" gurgled Thom nervously, practically collapsing in on himself. "Oh god, we're in trouble, aren't we?"

"It's probably nothing to do with us," I shrugged, torn between wanting to encircle him in my arms and protect him or slap him out of his self indulgent misery, deciding instead to check out the contents of the coffeemaker.

"I don't know. I mean, when _Yes, TRS-80_ went platinum, the Directors sent us each a bottle of champagne," continued Thom, giving up on his nail and starting in on the skin of his fingertips. "And I don't even like champagne."

"The Director is ready to see you now in Conference Room Two," announced the secretary, swinging back into the room and pointing the way down a short corridor.

"Oh my god, we're dead, we're dead, we're dead," muttered Thom to himself all the way down the corridor.

"Why the hell would a Director of MVC Records bother with us? Surely, it's just not that big a deal!" I insisted, willing him to shut up before his nervousness could become infectious.

Without explanation, we were shown into an enormous corner office, half of which seemed to be taken up by a huge, imposing black table. At first, I barely even noticed the person behind the desk, distracted by the panoramic view of the city, with the river in the distance, but Thom practically cowered in fear.

"Ms. Gordon, Mr. Eboracum... Good morning." 

 

I started at the sound of the voice, achingly familiar, and turned to confront the sharply dressed man leaning forward in his Chairman of the Board leather chair. He had the slightly long but immaculately mussed haircut of a former rock star, and was wearing an expensive Italian suit with a silk shirt, open at the neck.

"Thank you for joining us. Please take a seat." He paused, and I noticed for the first time a small gaggle of lawyer types in sharp grey suits gathered around the head of the table. "It has come to our attention that we have a rather worrying... situation brewing with a small independent record company in Britain, involving one of your songs..."

Memories coursed through my head, good times long forgotten, endless drunken nights of raucous carousing and good-natured teasing, and I found myself speaking without thinking. "Oh my god, you had me half scared to death, but it's just you. Oh, fuck..." I didn't know whether to laugh with relief or throw something at him.

I could feel Thom cringe in fear beside me, and the suits bristled at the informality, but the formidable figure at the opposite end of the table did not bat an eyelid. Drawing back from the table slightly, he eyed me coolly, allowing his lips to twist into a half smile. "Mr. Green, Mr. Berger, I think we can handle this by ourselves. I will call for your services again when I require them."

"Yes, sir," muttered the tallest of the lawyers, throwing a warning glance at me as he filed from the room, followed by the grey trail of his assistants.

"Director of A&R?" I repeated incredulously, grinning at him as I walked towards him. "What the hell is up with that? When did that happen? And this power suit... oh, give me a break! You look like a little boy playing dress-up! And this yuppie-ass haircut? How much did that set you back?"

Thom took a step backwards, looking as if he were about to throw up in fear, contemplating making a dash for the door on the heels of the lawyers, but the Director rolled his eyes, taking the teasing in good-natured stride, crossing his arms in an attempt to unsuccessfully maintain his imposing air. "And yes, these are fucking hand-stitched snakeskin cowboy boots from Nudie's fucking tailors, I'll have you know, thank you," he asserted, sticking out his leg for my approval.

"Argyle socks?" I gasped in disbelief. "You're wearing _argyle socks_? What have they done to you, Rob Sugarpussy? What have they done to you?"

"That's Rob Sugarpussy, Director of A&R for MVC Records, Media Mogul, King of the fucking Universe to you, missy!" laughed Rob, the old spark dancing in his eyes.

Thom stared back and forth between the two of us in outright amazement, blinking as if he was still convinced that policemen were going to come pouring through the walls and arrest us both at any moment. "Can someone please fill me in on what's going on?"

"With what?" shrugged Rob, as if noticing Thom for the first time. "Oh, the record. Yeah, we got a fax from Tortoiseshell this morning, we're going to settle out of court for a percentage of the royalties. You two won't get any of that, per se, but we're trying to set up something so you'll get some money through publishing."

"Oh." Thom looked mystified at the simplicity of it all, after the amount of worrying we'd been through in the past few days.

"Did you really think I was going to let them sue you? Come on, what's the point of being King of the Universe if you can't use your power for something good?" laughed Rob, turning back to me with a wide grin. "I flew down the moment I heard about this, cause it's fucking bullshit. But..." He shook a long, manicured finger at me in warning. "You tell that Damien dude not to let it happen again. I mean, if you'd just _asked_..."

"We didn't know!" I protested, settling back in one of the cushy seats. "God, how many times do I have to tell your people that? Trust me, it won't happen again..."

"No, no, don't get me wrong. I loved the single..."

"You've heard it?" I interrupted. "We haven't even seen it..."

"No, it's really lovely," insisted Rob, pulling a cigarette case out of his briefcase and lighting one, pausing to offer them to me before remembering "Oh, that's right, you don't smoke." Thom watched the pack disappear lovingly, but seemed too shy to ask for one himself. "Certain... um, quarters wanted to ask if you two would consider an album, even, not to push you or anything, but if you'd like to, well, MVC would be happy to..."

"God, Rob, just turn the business man off," I laughed. "I'm not buying it. Jesus, do you have anything else planned for the afternoon? Come on, we're in New Orleans, let's go get a drink. How long has it been since we shared a margarita?"

Rob glanced at his watch and made a face. "I don't know... I've got meetings scheduled this afternoon..."

"So cancel 'em!" I blustered. "We're in New Orleans - we have an obligation to get smashed on Hurricanes!"

Rob shook his head, waving me away as he tried to regain her businesslike composure, reaching for the phone. "Hullo, Sue? Please hold all my calls for the afternoon, and reschedule the appointments for tomorrow, something has come up. Thank you." With a fiendish snort, he put down the phone and grinned up at me. "You Charms girls have always been a bad influence on me. Always."

"Us? A bad influence on you?" I giggled. "You gave us our very first gig, opening for you at CBGBs. You took us on our first tour. You introduced us to sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Come on! Let's get fucking trashed, for old times' sake."

Fifteen minutes later, the three of us were in a taxi headed for the French Quarter, Rob and I chatting like old friends who hadn't seen each other in years while Thom watched in perplexed silence.

"So Beth and Emma, are they still at each other's throats, tearing apart the tourbus?" Rob laughed, lighting a cigarette off the last one.

"Jesus Christ, they fight like an old married couple. I don't know how the band has lasted this long."

"Hee hee hee," snickered Rob. "You know, they used to be a lesbian couple when we first met then, right?"

"What?" My mouth dropped open. "No way."

"Yes way. Hee hee hee. They used to live together, up in that grotty fourth floor walk-up in the East Village. I used to regularly go up there to break up fights when we thought one of them was gonna knife the other."

"That makes... everything... make so much sense. I can't believe I've been in a band with them for so long and never known. Jesus."

"That's coz we've never been out drinking, just you and me, before. I know so much gossip about your own band, it would blow your funky mind."

"Come on, tell me more," I demanded, ignoring the way Thom bristled at my side.

"No, no, no! I know shit that would get me killed if I told you," he insisted, climbing out of the taxi and handing the driver a twenty. "Ooh, this bar looks good, let's go in here. You said you wanted a hurricane? Thom?"

Thom brightened slightly, though he was obviously still prickling from the subject. "What's a hurricane?"

"Rum, rum, and enough fruit punch to make it red," I laughed.

"Sounds disgusting," muttered Thom.

"Can you go back and get us a booth?" suggested Rob, turning his eyes towards him. "We'll go up to the bar and get the drinks. She's good at that, aren't you, Kate?"

I laughed at old memories of the East Village, drunken assertions that I could get served at any bar, no matter how crowded it was, simply by showing a bit of cleavage, but Thom skulked off like a dismissed hound. "We don't exactly have to worry about that now, do we? It's early afternoon - there's no one here!"

Besides, my past was not something I wished to discuss so jokingly with Thom nearby. "Anyway, don't think I'm going to let you slide so easily out of explaining that little comment you just let drop. Did you and Emma ever have a thing, back in the day?"

He smiled coquettishly, pausing to tell the bartender. "Two hurricanes, please."

"Three," I corrected. 

"Fuck it - make it six. I always say it saves the effort of having to go up and get the second round if you buy them both at once," he laughed.

"Come on, spill the beans."

"Yeah, we had a little thing, back in the day." From the way he smiled, it seemed like it might have been more than just a little thing. "She left Beth for me - for which Beth has never really forgiven either of us. But yeah. To be honest, there was a time when I thought we were soulmates or something."

I rolled my eyes. "Do you really believe in that shit?"

"Soulmates?" He paused, turning around to peer back into the gloom of the bar, both of our eyes coming to rest on the slight figure of Thom, crumpled in the corner of the booth he was saving for us, his brow knitted and his hand tangled in his hair. "I suppose not. What about you? I heard you were engaged to some big shot English art dude. Was that _that_ Damien? What's he doing running a record label, anyway?"

"Yes, _that_ Damien," I sighed, his name like a prayer on my lips. "I met him at one of Carlos' parties after all. The night you tried to set me up with your singer."

" _That_ dude? The one I met at Glasto? He was good fun." Rob turned around, taking the drinks from the bartender and handing him another of his seemingly inexhaustible twenties.

"No, come on, let me get it," I protested, digging in my pockets for money.

"Like hell, I will. This is a business trip - it all goes on the expense account as a tax write-off."

"Oh, well, in that case, you can take us out to dinner, then," I laughed. "Mr Corporate Yuppie-Ass Big-Shot."

Rob scooped his two drinks off the bar and whirled around, leaving me to carry Thom's and mine back to the table.He grinned and slid into the booth opposite Thom. "You know, there's a part of me that love it - loves being a corporate big-shot, loves the wheeling and the dealing, and the feeling of power."

"And the other part?" I probed. "I mean, don't you miss being in a band? Being an artist? The creativity?"

Snorting derisively, Rob tossed back his drink easily. "Creativity? Oh come on, you should know from being in the industry how much of the corporate bullshit you have to take before you're allowed to do anything creative."

I merely shrugged in agreement, smiling wryly as I sipped the sweet syrupy rum of my drink.

"Besides, it just feels like I can do more good from behind the scenes. I think it's just as much an important part of the creative process to have people who can facilitate others to have the space they need for their creative process. I can use my power to cultivate my pet projects... like the Charms."

"What do you mean?" I asked, shaking my head.

He leaned back and stretched, laughing. "Do you know what kind of strings I was just able to pull for you, to keep your solo single out in the public?"

I bristled, staring down into the depths of my drink. Perhaps this was a mistake, talking so freely with someone who was so obviously on the wrong side of the record company payroll. I had been so relieved to see the friendly face of someone from the good old days that I had forgotten what detrimental effects the past few years might have had. If you pretend to be something for long enough, you will eventually become it - what if Rob had succeeded in becoming a hardened, cynical businessman after too many years in the industry? Feeling a sudden chill, I looked away darkly, sneering "Don't do us any favours..."

"No, no," protested Rob, realising that I had misunderstood what he had said. "I didn't mean it like that. It wouldn't make sense as a business move, if I sued the shit out of Damien, and yanked the product from the market. Sure, we could make a few quick bucks out of the lawsuit, but we stand to make a lot more if we keep the single out there." Noting my aghast expression, he quickly added. "Besides, I believe in you two as artists, and I believe that it's a beautiful song." He stopped for a moment, to take a sip of his drink.

"Thanks," I replied dryly. Thom looked intensely uncomfortable, staring intently into his drink. I could tell already that he was hugely jealous from the way that he had wrapped his arm around the back of my chair, as if he was trying to physically mark his territory against Rob.

Rob continued, oblivious. "I think it's fortunate for someone like myself to be in the position that I am. I've been on both sides now - when I first got into A&R it just made me sick, the kind of crap that we were churning out, because it was commercially successful. I was juggling publishing contracts for Moronis and the fucking Morris-Minors. Can you imagine that?"

"Not very easily," I commiserated. "I thought you loathed Moronis."

"I do. But her sales could pay the salary of half of our non-executive staff in New York," he sighed. "On the other hand, you've got a band like the Charms. No offence or anything, but to be perfectly honest with you, nine months ago, you were in serious danger of being dropped."

"I know," I sighed, remembering the darkest days of the band, when, in point of fact, we didn't even know if we had a band any more.

"Well, I'm gonna make it a fucking point to make sure that you don't." He giggled slightly, his flashing gold tooth belying his professional talk. "I love having the power that I can just do that. Emptying his first drink, he started on his second. On our empty stomachs, the sugary drinks were packing a potent punch.

"I'm sorry it's selling such shit compared to the first one," I sneered. God, Rob had changed. That was all these record company people cared about - sales and the money they generated.

"Fuck that! There's no way we're gonna lose you to Warner Records. This is my pet project, and me and the two managers of my A&R teams have a bet on who charts the most bands this year. I intend to win. Besides, even if we lose money, we can use it as a tax write-off," he snickered. "The more money we lose on one of our little bands means the less tax we have to pay on one of our really big bands. That means The Charms' losses subsidise Radioshack's tax bill. It's brilliant, really."

I drew away, shocked. This wasn't even about money - it was simply about pure, raw ego. "I think I need another drink."

"More rum, or do you want to switch to Margaritas? I know a great place just down the street..." he asked, waving his platinum American Express business card.

"Margaritas!" I sighed in agreement, climbing unsteadily to my feet. "Come on, Thom. You need to learn to keep up with us." He mumbled something, swallowing the rest of his drink, but did not reply as he followed us meekly down the street. "You're awfully quiet," I observed, somewhat more accusingly than I intended, but Rob always made me feel bold.

"What would you like me to say?" he shot back. "It seems you and Rob have enough to talk about without me."

"We're old friends. We go way back."

"Yeah, I can tell. You were practically sitting in his lap."

I stared at Thom, bristling at the accusation. "What the fuck? I didn't even touch him. He's like my band's adopted big brother or something."

"Just stop fucking flirting with him, like I'm not even here!"

For a moment, I stared at him, contemplating shouting something rude back at him, but Rob interrupted us. "You have _got_ to get the James Bond margaritas here. They are simply amazing."

Forgetting my annoyance at Thom, I trotted into the bar after Rob, letting him ply me with an absolutely enormous margarita in an oversized martini glass. Perhaps our day off in New Orleans was not going to be such a write-off after all. Just stay off the business talk and stick to the gossip and drinking and it might be alright. 

"So where are you living now? London? You turned into a proper Limey now?" Rob teased.

"I'm living on tour right now, to be honest." I hadn't even thought that part through. Where the hell did I live, now, if I was no longer with Damien? I could hardly go back to Oxford with Thom, if his girlfriend was living in his house, and there was no way I wanted to take him to New York.

"Best place to be. I fucking miss it. Haven't been on the road since Tractor broke up, that fucking bastard. Did you hear that Jon started a new band, in Copenhagen, with that model as the new singer?"

"Sorry, I'm so far out of the loop..."

They got signed to MVC Denmark, that was how I heard about it." He leaned in closer, to whisper in my ear in a way that made Thom almost turn purple with apoplexy. "Do you know what I did when I found out?"

"What?" Feeling Thom's eyes on me, I shrunk back, even as Thom put his hand on my leg under the table and tightened his grip.

"Dropped the fuck out of them," Rob snorted with delighted laughter, making a gesture with his fingers on the table like he was drop-kicking a football.

I stared at him in shock. "I can't believe you," I chided. "You're talking about using your position to promote your friends and get revenge on a rival..."

"No, no!" protested Rob. "It wasn't like that... Well, the decision was already in the pipeline, I just..."

"Helped," I supplied.

"Well, wouldn't you?" he snickered, finishing his drink in one gulp. 

I stared down into my drink, bristling at the hypocrisy, but unwilling to let go of the illusion of comfortable familiarity, despite my growing sense of unease. 

"This is crazy. God damn corporate lifestyle has taken its toll on my tolerance. It's barely noon, I've sucked down three drinks on an empty stomach, and I'm shit-faced already," laughed Rob.

"And what's wrong with that? You've forgotten what it's like to be on tour, haven't you?" I defended, then turned around, noticing a sudden absence at my elbow. "Where's Thom got to?"

"Men's room?" shrugged Rob. "Want another drink? Oh, you're not finished. Come on, keep up!" He snapped his fingers impatiently under my nose, then caught the bartender's eye and gestured to his empty glass. "So enough about me, what about you? This is new," he observed, patting the ring on my finger. "You married your crazy conceptual artist, then?"

At that moment, I suddenly wanted to cry, turning away so he would not see the glistening mist in my eyes, resisting the urge to simply put my head down on the bar and start to bawl. Picking up my drink, I sucked the rest of it down in a single gulp, trying to recapture the mood. In the simple pleasure of catching up with an old friend, I had managed to forget my troubles for some time, though they came rushing back with a vengeance now.

"Someday, I gotta meet me some cool chick and settle down, but I'm still having too much goddamn fun. If you think you get a lot of pussy when you're in a touring band, you should see how much pussy you get when you're holding the strings of the record contracts. I got chicks lining up to suck my dick just to listen to their demo tapes..." Suddenly he stopped, distracted by something behind me.

I turned to see Thom emerging from the dark recesses of the club, his face and hair damp, and his eyes red and puffy, and I suddenly felt incredibly guilty for tearing him down behind his back. "Thom, sweetie... are you alright?" I asked worriedly, swinging around on the barstool to face him. "Are you ill? Is this a tour bug or something?"

"I'm not ill." He shook his head slowly, stopping a few feet away from me. "I think I'm going to go back to the hotel, if we're all settled with MVC," he replied very carefully, his face turbulent with emotion.

"Oh, we're done with all that legal and business crap," assured Rob. "Stay! Have another drink and chew the fat, dude. Thom fucking Eboracum, of fucking Radioshack, you're a fucking legend in the MVC A&R Department. Tell me how you do it. Wait, let me get you another margarita..."

Thom shook his head more insistently. "No. No, I don't think that's a good idea."

Holding out his arm, he reached for my hand, but I shook him off. "Don't you want to come with me?" he whined.

"No!" I insisted, then rapidly tried to cover myself. "Look, we're having a really good catch-up session..."

Thom glared at me, shifting his weight back and forth between his legs, before trying to guilt me into accompanying him. "But what if I get lost on the way back to the hotel? I don't know my way around this city, at all."

"Here, take a cab," offered Rob, holding out some money. "Just get a receipt, I'll put it on the expense account..."

Thom's face twisted with something akin to disgust. "No way," he spat. "Fine. I'll find my own way back." Thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, he stormed off, kicking metal chairs out of the way as he left the bar.

"Thom..." Throwing an apologetic glance back towards Rob, I slid off my barstool and ran after him, out into the bright light of the street. He stopped, staring up into the sky with a helpless expression, but did not turn around. "What is it? Are you sick, or are you just being otherwise?" He shrugged and slumped his shoulders, but did not reply. "Look - Rob is one of my oldest friends in the business! I haven't seen him in ages."

"So stay and talk to him. I'm hardly stopping you," 

I moved closer, laying my hand against his cheek to check his temperature, but it was normal, maybe even slightly cool to the touch in the tropical heat of New Orleans. "I'm just worried about you."

"Don't be. Go back and schmooze with your record industry friends." The amount of passive aggression he could pack into a single sentence was nearly overwhelming.

Pulling my hand back as if it had been burnt, I stared at him, a mixture of shocked and hurt. "He's not just a record industry friend."

"He is about as industry as you can get," he threw back in my face. "Smiling and faking to your face, but he's as manipulative as the rest of them. Laughing about dropping his ex-friend's band as some sort of revenge, prostituting women in exchange for listening to their demos... that's appalling! These people are moral vacuums - it's not even about money or unit shifting or whatever. It's just all about ego. About using people like tissue paper and then throwing them away..."

"Thom!" I stepped backwards, shocked at his outburst. "For a start, Rob is a fucking joker and always has been, I don't take any of that talk seriously. But more importantly, I would appreciate it if you did not talk about my friends in that way, no matter what you think of their professions." I paused, so angry I was not even sure how to articulate my frustration and annoyance. "And furthermore... god, you are such a fucking hypocrite. You are as deep in this fucking business as I am, but you just like to pretend that you're somehow spiritually pure, so you can hold yourself above everyone else."

Thom's eyes flashed with rage. "You... you..." He seemed so furious he could barely speak. "You know, when I first met you, my first impression was that you were just a cynical businesswoman. But the more I got to know you, the more I thought, _my god, she's just like me._ But now I have to wonder if my first impression wasn't correct, and it was all just projection."

I stared at him, so used to these temper tantrums that I was no longer either frightened or intimidated by them, simply waiting until he was calm enough to talk rationally. Projection? Yeah, that might be exactly it. Projection on his part, hero worship on mine, the mistake compounded at every turn. Refusing to even dignify his ranting with a response, I turned on my heel and walked back into the bar.

"You alright, kiddo?" Rob chirped, pushing a fresh drink towards me.

"I don't even know any more," I suddenly broke down and confessed, feeling like I needed to spill my heart all over the table. Rob was the last person in the world that was ever going to judge me, and I needed an ear. "It just feels like _everyone_ is angry at me right now. Everyone is making these fucking impossible demands of me - Amy wants us to get through the tour and sell a million records without even taking a break to fucking piss like a normal human being. Beth and Emma want me to join sides to prove that the other one of them is wrong, Thom wants me to save him from his own fucking demons under the guise of protecting me from mine, and Damien..." I took a deep breath. What had Damien ever asked of me, except to just love him? "I don't even know what Damien wants from me at this point. I think he just wants to squish me into a little box labelled 'Mrs. Hearse.'"

Rob simply stared at me, his face glazed over in a drunken smile. He hadn't even heard me, let alone understood what I said. "You know what they say, missy. When the going gets tough, the tough... do some fucking tequila shots. How about it?"

I stared into the bottom of my margarita as I drained the glass. As the drink slid down my throat, the world shimmered slightly, the annoyance I felt towards Thom dissolving like the salt dusted around the rim of the glass in the sweet sour liquid. "Bring it on."


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Aggro-Zombie Thom's jealousy spills over into rage, Kate has to face the truth about their marriage.
> 
> And as Beth sinks back into old habits, the fate of the Charms' tour hangs in the balance.
> 
> Content warning for domestic violence.

It was well after midnight by the time I crawled back to the hotel, stinking drunk, my voice hoarse from laughing so much with Rob and my legs sore from walking up and down the strip, listening to the jazz pouring out of the sweaty clubs. Surprised to find the light on, I tip-toed into the room, only to find Thom awake, lying in bed, staring dispassionately at the television set in front of him.

"Hi," I ventured softly, wondering if I should have gone to Maddie's or Emma's room to try and blag the other side of the bed from one of them. No, that was absurd. This was my room, I shouldn't have to fight for my own bed, no matter how angry I was at my husband. _Husband_? Jesus Christ, now we were fighting all the time was I really thinking about him as my husband?

"Hi." His voice was tiny and tired, his eyes heavily lidded and reptilian. I had been expecting him to be angry, but somehow this calm silence was even worse.

"You missed a fantastic time. Rob got up on stage with this blues band and did some Robert Johnson songs... that man has the hugest voice for a white boy that I've ever heard..." I started to babble, then stopped myself, remembering the circumstances under which we'd parted.

Thom shifted slightly in bed, turning towards me, silently fixing me with a furious gaze for a few minutes. Something about him looked different, but it took some time for it to penetrate my drunken brain, what it was. He'd had his hair cut. Fucking typical of Thom, to walk out of a social occasion, a reunion like that, and go off and preen himself... Couldn't find the hotel by himself, but he could find a hairdresser? Fucking typical. That thatch of thick, spiky red hair that I loved so much, it was all gone. His hair was close-cropped to his head, as brutal as a monk, but the stubble wasn't even his natural honey-blond, it was dyed an austere black which made his pale, buttery skin look sallow and unhealthy.

I opened my mouth to say something, to comment on how much I hated it, then changed my mind as Thom seemed to notice my gaze, and self-consciously rubbed his hand over the bristly back of his head before accusing "You never told Damien, did you?"

"What?" I stuttered, digging through the drunken layers of my mind for a suitable cover lie or excuse.

"You never told Damien that we were married," he repeated, his voice growing loud and angry. "Did you?"

"What makes you say that?"

He shook his head, his mouth twisting into a tense line. "Don't lie, Kate. He called tonight - I spoke to him myself."

"You..." This was bad. This was really bad.

"He didn't recognise my voice, so I told him that I was one of your roadies. He started asking questions about your tour schedule, saying he was thinking of popping over to the states to surprise you, because he was worried about how strange you were acting the last time you chatted on the phone."

"Did he?" My heart skipped a beat at the thought of seeing Damien again, then lurched at the idea of what he would have walked into.

"I managed to convince him it was a bad idea." His voice was strained, as if he were on the verge of completely losing his temper. "But he had no fucking idea that you're _mine_ now. You never fucking told him, did you?"

"Well, have you told your fucking girlfriend yet?" I snapped back. "I mean, if it's so fucking easy, I don't see you ringing up... whatever her fucking name is, and telling her the news."

"Ruth," Thom supplied slowly, his eyes blazing. "Her name is Ruth."

"Yeah, well why don't you just go and give Ruth a little phone call, huh?" I snarled, picking the phone off the bedside table as if to hand it to him. "Hypocrite!" Suddenly, it felt like there was a small explosion between my hands. One minute, I was holding the phone and the next, he was on his feet and had knocked it from my hands.

"I spoke to her earlier this evening. While I was waiting for you to finish screwing around with Rob..."

"Oh, not this accusation again. Please, I've got a headache."

"If you'd bothered to come home..."

"Did you tell her?" I interrupted before he could start up again.

"No." I did not realise that so much anger could be contained in one syllable.

"Well what the fuck did you call her for?"

"I missed her."

A surge of jealousy shot up the base of my spine, irrational, nonsensical, but still so powerful I wanted to claw his eyes out. No, wait, that wasn't jealousy, it was pure anger. In the absence of my tranquillisers, the alcohol had been protecting me from my emotions, but now the drunk was wearing off, I felt cranky and mean. My first instinct was to move over towards my suitcase to find the bottle of pills, but Thom blocked my way. I tried to push past him, but he dodged again, thrusting his body between me and my objective.

"So if you miss her so fucking much, why don't you just fuck off home to her and leave me alone?"

"Listen to me," he insisted, grabbing at my arm as I twisted away. I pushed him off me, and he pushed back, much harder. Soon we were grappling. It was oddly like that first day, back at the studio, except then we'd been at play, and now we were deadly serious.

"Fuck you, leave me alone," I sighed, which suddenly made him very, very angry. He grabbed for my throat, and somehow caught hold of the front of my dress. There was a momentary tussle, and the room buzzed with the sound of ripping fabric. Suddenly I was lying, winded, on the bed, staring up at him, standing over me with a huge chunk of my favourite paisley dress in one hand, and the other round my throat. My mind rebelled. That could not have just happened. I must have tripped and stumbled backwards... But no. I could feel the hot, burning spot on my throat where he had seized me and shoved me to the bed. He might be small, but that wiry little body was unbelievably strong.

At that moment, something snapped in me. Perhaps it was my drunkenness, perhaps it was the first day in weeks I'd spent without the tranquillisers blunting my emotions, perhaps it was just the primal fear of being physically terrorised, but with almost superhuman strength, I pushed him off me rolled away from him, backwards across the bed, and clambered to my feet. My dress hung in rags about my body, but I faced him down, my face burning and my temper high. Suddenly I remembered the black eye I'd been sporting in Las Vegas, which I'd been pushing out of my mind for weeks, and connected the dots.

"Get out."

"What?" He stared at me, disbelieving, even as he still clutched the scrap of fabric in his hands.

"I said get out."

"You can't be serious. You don't mean that."

"I have never been so serious in my fucking life, Thom."

"Wait, I don't even have my shoes..."

I grabbed his trainers from the floor and hurled them over towards him, then, refusing to listen to him, I walked over to his backpack, lying open on the floor. Seizing it, I picked his t-shirt off the back of a chair and shoved it inside, then went into the bathroom and cleared the sink of his toothbrush, his razors and his hair wax.

"Take your things, and go," I insisted, slamming the backpack into his chest, forcing him to take it or let it drop onto his feet. It was no longer a request, it was an order.

"Look, I'm sorry, it was an accident," he wheedled, staring at my chest through the rip in my dress. "I didn't mean to... You can't seriously believe that I would have hurt you?" 

Wait, now he was pretending that he hadn't even done it? "I don't need to _believe_ it. I just fucking saw you do it. Get out!"

"Where am I supposed to go?" he protested, balling up his fists as he slung the backpack over one shoulder.

"I don't care."

"I don't have any money!"

"You're a fucking millionaire, Thom. Rob told me how many albums you've sold to date. Don't give me this sob story. Get a taxi, get a hotel room, get a fucking plane back to England, I don't fucking care, just fucking go. You are never touching me again."

He was actually shaking, though whether with anger or fear, I couldn’t quite tell. "You can not be serious." I stood my ground, glaring at him defiantly. "Look, if you throw me out, you will regret it."

"I don't think so. You cannot make me regret _this_ any more than I already regret letting you stay for this long."

"If I walk out that door, Kate, you will never see me again."

"That's what I'm fucking hoping for!" Without looking down, I twisted and wrangled the ring from my finger, then threw it at him. It bounced, rolling across the floor, and Thom scrambled for it, down on his hands and knees. For a horrible moment, I was reminded of Jeremy Kane, digging through his luggage for his next fix. But instead of buckling, I felt suddenly very strong. There was no way this could ever be as bad as the situations I'd already lived through.

"You callous fucking bitch. I'll show you..." he muttered, more to himself than me.

"You'll show me, how? What, are you going to threaten to kill yourself now? Oops, you will pardon me if I have heard _that_ one before. Now are you going to leave, or am I going to have to call security?"

He climbed slowly to his feet, glaring at me with an expression so poisonous I actually thought he was going to turn and hit me, but instead, he shook his head, opened the door and slipped out into the hall. For the space of several heartbeats, I just stood, staring at the now empty space, barely believing he hadn't called my bluff, then suddenly leapt into action, flinging myself across the room and fastening the chain on the latch before he could change his mind Finally, I sank down to the floor with my back against the door. He was gone.

 

 

I awoke with a pounding headache, my mouth dry and parched and my body aching. Why could I never remember not to take pills and drink like that until the next morning? For a moment, I could not quite remember where I was or how I got there, but slowly the memory of the previous evening of drinking with Rob Sugarpussy spread across my mind. And Thom... oh god. Opening my eyes, I rolled over to stare at his sleeping body, only to be greeted by the sight of rumpled sheets, the opposite side of the bed completely empty. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, wondering for a moment if he'd already woken and headed for the shower, but as I glanced around the room, I realised that his clothes, his backpack, in fact every sign he'd ever even been there was completely gone.

With a slight cry, I leapt out of bed, checking the bathroom to make sure I was not mistaken, but he had vanished. It was true. I had finally done it. Padding back over to the bed, I sank down, too shocked to even cry. 

My very first reaction was that of utter selfish freedom. After all the conflicting emotions of the past few months, it was almost a relief to have the place to myself. But then, suddenly, I felt very cold, completely abandoned and alone in the world. No, that was absurd, I tried to convince myself. After everything that had happened in the past few weeks, I was better off without him. I didn't love him anyway, that was a conclusion I'd reached days ago. Then again, if I didn't love him, why did I feel so empty right now? I was tempted to just reach for the tranquillisers, pop another few pills, and make it all go away, but with my head clear for the first time in weeks, I realised they had been half the problem. No. I had to get my head clear, and figure it out myself.

The phone bleated and my heart leapt, terrified it was Thom, calling in maudlin apology from a phone booth at the airport. "Hullo?"

"Wake up call, Kate. We've got to check out by noon," blathered Amy's voice in my ear.

By the time I had dressed and dragged myself downstairs to the curb, I had finally managed to convince myself that I didn't need him and I certainly didn't miss him. A failed but beautiful tour affair that had outlived it usefulness - had it not been for the drunken mistake in Las Vegas, that was all it ever would have been. Well, let it simply be that, then.

"Where the bloody hell is Beth?" swore Amy, out on the pavement with her cellphone, trying to wave down a passing taxi.

"Like she's talking to me," I snarled.

"You tried her room?" suggested Emma, blinking against the bright southern sun before shielding her hungover and bloodshot eyes with my Jackie O shades.

"She hasn't been there all night," swore Amy. "Dammit, we have to go. She just better pray for her own sake she meets us at the theatre." Looking around, she stared at me. "And where the blazes is Thom?"

"Don't worry about him," I assured her rather snidely, remembering her little sermon of the previous night. "He's not your concern."

"Where are we eating, I'm starved," moaned Maddie.

"You should have eaten the continental breakfast the hotel provided," snapped Amy.

"Like we were going to be up at 8am," snorted Emma.

"Fine, we can stop at McDonalds, but you've got 5 minutes to make up your mind, we don't have time to dilly dally over whether they've got vegetarian McMuffins on the menu," bargained Amy, with the patience of a soccer mom.

Despite our craftiness in stretching our breakfast stop to about 20 minutes, by the time we reached the venue, Beth had still not surfaced for soundcheck.

"Well, we don't really need her for soundcheck, anyway, do we?' shrugged Maddie. "All she does for most of the set is fucking sing these days anyway."

Emma turned around and stared at her, shocked at what seemed like such an open declaration of mutiny. "She still plays keyboards on _Hung With Joy_ and _Gift of Vision_ ," she replied quietly, though without her typical force and bombast.

"Just give me a level on the keyboard, we can fine tune it later," announced the sound man over the monitors. Emma and I exchanged looks, but I made no move towards the keyboards, leaving her to amble over and twiddle the knobs on her own.

"So what do we do if she doesn't show up?" Maddie demanded, as soon as the soundcheck was over, as the three of us filed backstage to wait the interminably endless hours before the show began. At some point, we were expecting someone from a local television show to interview us, but at the moment, we were left to our own devices.

"She will show up," insisted Emma. "Beth's never missed a gig." She didn't even have to complete the sentence. _Unlike some people_. I cringed, moving away from both of them, wondering if this was what they'd felt when I'd neglected to turn up after the Leeds Festival.

"What if she doesn't?" persisted Maddie doggedly. "I mean, if you or Kate were late, I wouldn't worry in the slightest, but Beth?"

"What are you saying?" I snapped, bristling at the accusation, founded though it might be.

"I'm saying we go on without her," clarified Maddie.

"This whole conversation is absurd," snarled Emma, whirling around on her heel. Despite being the one with the largest axe to grind, she seemed Beth's stalwart defender, once we were down to the wire.

 

 

The hours ticked by, but there was still no sign of Beth. "She knows where we're playing, right?" I ventured, staring out the tiny window at the parking lot, watching the kids line up outside.

"It's not that hard to find out," muttered Emma, obviously annoyed. The interview had come and gone, leaving us groping to fill up space without Beth's magnetic personality. I felt sick and worried, overcome by free-floating anxiety, but at least the larger fear of the imminent non-appearance of our front woman kept me from thinking too much about Thom.

"Doors are in an hour," pointed out Maddie. Bloody hell, where had the time gone? "Emma, do you think you could carry the lead vocals?"

"If she doesn't show, we don't play," declared Emma.

"It's a little too late to cancel," I observed, still staring at the line. Since when had we been so popular that fans would line up outside in the heat of a New Orleans summer? MVC might be worried that our album wasn't selling well, but we certainly had our obsessive cult following.

"There's no way I could play the guitar riffs to the new songs and sing lead - maybe back in our garage days we could, but they're far too complicated now," pronounced Emma.

"Kate, you could switch to lead, couldn't you?" ventured Maddie, turning to me with her eyebrows raised in query. The question was loaded, its meaning extending far below the surface. Emma's face fell, the fear showing in her eyes, but majority always carried - that was the rules.

For a split second, my conflicting loyalties battled with each other, but then I remembered all the petty feuds, all the political infighting and backbiting. "I could sing lead. In a pinch..." I added, to soften the blow, but Maddie's face was triumphant.

Emma sat back down on the threadbare couch, lighting a cigarette and pulling a crumpled set list out of her pocket, then conceding defeat. "Well, we'll have to write _Gift_ out of the set, but that means we can throw in _The Boy Hairdresser_ , which always makes the hardcore fans happy. Kate, you'll sing the first 3 songs, I'll take _These Are The Days_ , cause it's got that killer bassline, Maddie do you want to do _Bad Hat_?"

"Sure," chirped Maddie, delighted at having swung her way.

"That takes care of the older songs... the new ones, well, Kate, you and Maddie wrote most of them, so I'm sure you can handle them..." On and on, the more we carved up the set list, the more I felt vaguely like a traitor, but I had to admit that the sense of freedom was exhilarating.

The door opened, and the audience poured in, staking out their claims by the stage until the entire front row was filled up by sweaty anxious kids. No matter how many times I did this, when the house lights darkened, and the opening band trouped onto the stage, I still felt the incipient butterflies in my stomach.

I sat through most of the opening band's set by myself, wondering how the rag-tag band of the three of us could ever compare to the simple innocent energy of our support act. How young and fresh they seemed, making up for the unpolishedness of their performance with their enthusiasm.

Suddenly, I felt someone's presence beside me, and turned to see Emma nervously watching the audience. "We can do this, right?" she muttered, her dark brown eyes huge with nervousness.

"I don't particularly want to, but... look at their faces..."

"It's Beth they want," shrugged Emma, sucking hard on her cigarette. "Where's Thom, anyway?"

I opened my mouth to try and formulate a convincing response, but at that moment, there was a commotion at the backstage door. "Let me through, you asshole! I'm in the band," floated Beth's disembodied voice as the light from the street lamp outside flooded the backstage area. "He's with me, leave him alone!"

"Oh, thank god," muttered Emma, casting me a strangled look before dashing back to confront Beth. "Where the hell have you been?" she demanded, more relieved than angry, but Beth did not want to hear it.

"I don't see how that's any of your business," tossed back Beth, shaking her mane of auburn hair defiantly, clinging to a tall, thin streak of piss in black leather trousers.

"You're four fucking hours late!" blustered Emma.

"The opening band is still playing," shrugged Beth. "You don't need me for soundcheck, anyway. All they ever want to hear is the drums and the fucking guitars." 

I moved in closer, but Amy blocked my view. "You have ten minutes to be on that stage," she threatened. "We will talk about this afterwards."

"What?" protested Beth in mock innocence. The tone of her voice just sounded strange, arrogant, though not unfamiliar. "Come on, Wolfie... let's get ready... Hi, Kate!" She giggled unsteadily when she caught sight of me, her smile spreading like a disease across her face. "Have you met my friend, Wolfgang?"

I stared at the boy, a pretty but vacuous looking young Goth with high, rouged cheekbones and long, dyed-black hair, then back at Beth, her pupils huge and dilated. In the dim light of the theatre, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I definitely had my doubts.

Whatever comment formed on my lips was cut off by the roar of the crowd as the opening band finished and trooped towards us. "Great show, nice set," I muttered, smiling encouragingly on the outside as I nodded towards them, though inside, I was still trying to gauge how coked up Beth was. No, that wasn't fair, to assume that, after everything she'd been through to get straight. But the dazed look in her eye was unmistakable as she pulled her groupie aside, standing on her tip toes to whisper something in his ear.

"Come on, come on," urged Amy. "We're running behind schedule. As soon as the roadies have cleared the opening band's shit away, come on, let's go... Beth! Don't wander off!"

Watching her tottering slightly, nodding at Amy to indicate that she'd heard, then dodging into the bathroom with the Goth Boy, I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. How the fuck could she be so stupid as to get into all that again? Then again, who was I to throw stones? How could I be so stupid as to get involved with Thom, considering everything I'd learned about hero worship? I could feel the tension emanating off Emma, practically at the breaking point, glaring past me towards the door through which Beth had disappeared. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, Emma had already guessed.

"No, Emma, you don't want to go in there... it's not worth it," I begged, pushing in front of her as she stomped towards the bathroom.

"Why are you defending her? She's coked to the fucking gills, isn't she?" exploded Emma, standing on her tip toes to glance past me, then looking up at me with a helpless expression.

"I don't know."

"Come on, come on," goaded Amy, waving her arms as she muttered something into her cellphone. "Where's Maddie? You're on - _Now!_ "

"I'm here, I'm here," assured Maddie, her drumsticks in hand, tapping out the rhythm to the opening song on her thighs. "Start the sample track now, we're ready."

In the now-familiar pattern, the house lights went down and the stage lights came up, a dark cobalt blue wash pulsing gently in time to the beat pumping through the theatre. By this point, no matter what turmoil was swirling through my head, the autopilot took over, and there was no way I could stop the show now. The applause coming in waves off the audience was like some sort of stimulant, pulling me towards the stage door. 

Maddie was one step ahead of me, finding the steps up to the drum riser almost instinctively, but as soon as the audience caught sight of her, they exploded with affirmation. Emma and I strolled onstage next, swaying our heads in time with the music, picking up our instruments and waiting for the cue to start. Behind me, I could hear Maddie working the high-hat in time with the sample track, then bringing in the kick drum, starting to work up an infectious dance beat.

Emma picked up next, sliding her fingers back and forth over her frets in a wash of beautiful noise, skirting in and out of the melody in an exquisite tapestry of sound. Glancing around, I tried to find Beth backstage, but failed to spot her in the ebb and flux of people. "Where _is_ she?" hissed Emma, glaring at me through the dim haze of the lights. Any second now, the song was going to lurch into action, the melody coming in on the vocals, and, goddammit, we needed Beth at the front of it.

Hearing my cue, I started the throbbing, insistent bassline that heralded the countdown to the vocal hook. _One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi..._ where the hell was Beth? Fuck it! Padding up to the front of the stage, I caught the attention of the sound man, then sidled up to my microphone, imitating Beth's voice the best I could.

_"So, when it all comes down to the end... where have we got to, where we have found ourselves, running over the same ground, pacing back and forth like rats in a cage, like rats in a guilded rage,"_ I sung, trying very hard to put out of my mind how much these old lyrics applied to the situation at hand. _"Now, don't you point your finger at me, what it's come to I cannot see, but when it all comes down to the end, I think you'll find..."_

Suddenly my voice was echoed by a second voice, and a huge cry went up from the crowd. Without taking my mouth from the microphone, chanting the words to the opening song from the new album, I turned around slowly to see Beth standing in the middle of the stage, her clothes and hair dishevelled, but her eyes sparkling. _"...that where we're going to and where we've been don't make a difference, they're all the same, we never learn, just walk down the old roads, and when it all comes down to the end, you'll find..."_

The music paused for a count of four to allow the tension to build, and I pulled away from the mic to watch Beth's reaction. She tottered slightly, holding the mic at arm's length, entranced by the lights, not even paying attention to the clicks Maddie was counting away from the stage monitors, completely missing the cue to come back in on the downstroke of the next bar.

_"We're back on the old roads, Just walk down the old roads, Just because it's so familiar doesn't mean you're going home,"_ supplied the audience, barely noticing that Beth had missed her cue in the rush of the familiar song.

Swearing under my breath, I dashed up to the microphone just in time to save the rest of the phrase, as Beth was muffing the words badly, never quite recovering from missing the first phrase. Mercifully, the sound man, still working from a soundcheck Beth had been absent from, did not quite bother to turn up Beth's vocals in time, and my vocals carried over where the audience's left off.

Narrowing her eyes at me, as if blaming me for her mistake, she moved towards the centre of the stage, clicking her mic onto the stand, then spread her arms in a messianic gesture. Still, barely any of her vocals were coming out of the monitors, and, I could only assume the main speakers also had her muted, so I stuck to my mic, covering the vocals to the best of my abilities, making up in emotion what I lacked in range. Beth barely seemed to notice, lost in her own world, but Emma was eyeing me strangely, as if missing the harmonies where my vocals should be. The song ended and Beth threw back her hair, ever the diva, bowing deeply, then rushing back to the side of the stage. Although she tried to pass it off as theatrical effect, I could see the little Goth boy hovering close, holding out what looked for all the world like a line of cocaine on the back of a CD case.

"Shit," swore Emma under her breath, backing away from the mic and glancing at me. I shrugged, then caught the eye of the sound man, gesturing towards Beth, then making the universal onstage sign language gesture for cut the volume. He nodded, then settled back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest as the next song started. _These Are The Days_ ; an old song - I could handle this, trading the lyrics back and forth with Emma.

After a few songs, we seemed to almost fall into a pattern, Emma and I trading lead vocals on and off, the same as we'd planned to do as if Beth were not even there. Even over the roar of the onstage monitors, I could hear her vocals, hopelessly off key and lagging behind the beat, though her theatrical gestures still seemed spot on. Half of me wanted to scream at her that she was making a fool of herself, letting us all down with her fucking habits, but the other half of me simply wanted to sit back, give her enough rope and let her hang herself. Sooner or later, the audience had to catch on, though surprisingly enough, on the whole, they didn't even notice, transfixed by her. Even I had to admit, the drug made her even more of an electrifying performer, though I knew it was killing her personality.

Another break between songs, and she ran backstage again. Goddammit, how much could she take before she collapsed? I felt powerless to stop her, borne up in this thing that was bigger than all of us, the performance, the show, glued to the microphone, spitting out her vocal hooks while she pirouetted across the stage, flirting with death out in front of the monitors. Emma's face was twisted with rage and pity and fear, but none of us dared to stop playing, locked into the tracks as if they were our only hope of surviving the evening intact. The audience seemed not to notice a thing, but I could not help the feeling that they were being cheated. 

The moment the set was over, and we were offstage, Emma lunged at Beth. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

Grabbing Emma by the scruff of her collar before she physically harm Beth, Amy stepped between them. "Emma, let it go. I will deal with this."

Beth grinned snidely at Emma, like a child allowed to get away with murder, but her smiled faded as Amy whirled around. "Beth, what the bloody hell do you think you are doing?"

"I was late," Beth shrugged, then turned to glare at me pointedly, a distinct tone of hostility creeping into her voice. "It's not like no one else around here has never been late."

"Are you on fucking drugs?" exploded Emma. Beth refused to answer, sulking defiantly, her eyes flashing. "You're coked to the gills, aren't you? Jesus Fucking Christ..."

"You've got a lot of nerve getting on my case for a few lines of coke when you've been plastered practically every night of the tour. And we won't even get into Kate and her _Mother's Little Helpers_ there..." sneered Beth.

"They were fucking prescribed!" I exclaimed indignantly, knowing full well that it was little excuse.

"Beth, that's enough," snapped Amy, shining her flashlight into Beth's eyes. I knew what she was doing - trying to assess whether to take her to an emergency room or simply bundle her onto the bus to sober up.

"Cut that out," snarled Beth, drawing away, looking around wildly for her Gothic Boy Toy. "Wolfie... Oh, there you are honey." Throwing her arms around his neck, she shoved her tongue down his throat and rubbed up against him in a way that left it explicitly clear what they'd been doing for the missing hours.

"Come on," urged Maddie. "We've got to go back out there for an encore..."

"Fuck that," dismissed Beth, barely pulling away from her embrace to express her derision.

"What?" exploded Emma, whirling around. Encores were one of the things we'd always looked forward to most about our headlining shows. With the singles out of the way, it was our time to fool around and experiment, often pulling off outrageous covers or silly antics.

"There's no fucking rule that says we have to do an encore every night," shrugged Beth. "It's just some stupid tradition. Quite frankly, I find it demeaning if they fucking expect it from us. Ungrateful shits..."

Although there was no way I wanted to even attempt an encore with Beth in this mood, I was shocked by her attitude. No matter how bad the hellish atmosphere of touring became, we always tried to consider what it was like to be down in the audience, remembering that at the end of the day, they were the reason we were even here. All of us, at one time or another might have felt that way, but we would never be so indelicate as to actually say it out loud.

"Come on, Wolfie. Where the fuck's the tourbus?"

" _Beth!_ " Her voice raising in volume, Amy stalked off after her, but when her mind was set, nothing could dissuade Beth. "You come back here right this second."

Beth whirled around. "You're not my fucking mother, alright? Just leave me the fuck alone."

Maddie gestured to me, the three of us pulling closer in the wake of the tidal wave we had just felt pass through. "What do we do?" she asked desperately, her eyes wide. "Things can't go on like this." Emma shook her head slowly. "She's made her damned point, perhaps she'll..."

"Making a point? Is that what you think this is?" Emma contradicted. "Making a point would be having a fight, missing a gig, all that other crap we occasionally indulge in. But she is a fucking addict on a relapse, and..."

"We don't know how long she's been doing this," I pointed out, loathe to defend Beth, but unwilling to consign her to rehab just yet. "It's only been a day..."

Emma shook her head. "You remember what she was like before. This is not just a little dabble for Beth. You can't do that when you're a fucking addict, like she is..."

"Look!" I cut her off sharply. "I don't want to argue about it. Right now, the important thing is that we go back out on that stage, and we give those people what they paid for."

"Without Beth?" stuttered Maddie.

"You were so keen on doing the entire show without her," I shrugged.

"Emma, what do you say?"

Emma stared at her shoes, shifting her weight back and forth uneasily, then looked up, her eyes clouded with worry. "I'm scared. I'm terrified that one of these days, that stupid fucking bitch is going to end up killing herself." She threw up her hands in desperation. "I know that she is the biggest fucking drama queen there is. But I'm scared that one of these days, she won't be doing it for the attention - she really will be fucking out of control, but it'll be like the boy who cried wolf, and no one will believe her." She paused, lighting a cigarette and pacing back and forth, but then a defiant light blazed in her eyes. " I don't know if she's doing this for attention or not, but I do know from experience is that you can't give in to her if she is. We haven't done _Bizarre Love Triangle_ yet... we can do that on just the sequencer, can't we?"

Any qualms we may have had about missing Beth were lost in the roar of the crowd as the distinctive drumbeat started, our profiles just barely visible through the light show whizzing past our heads. The idea for the cover had been mine, really, and I had always sung the lead vocal, much to the annoyance of Beth, which was why we rarely attempted it live. The words stung, but I didn't care. When I'd chosen it, I'd been on the outside of the love triangle, watching Alex fall back in love with Em, but from the inside of the triangle, every word seemed imbued with new meaning.

The crowd were on the balls of their feet, jumping up and down in a seething human carpet, blanketing the hall from one end to the other. This was what mattered, not the stupid, petty feuds that dogged our day to day existence as a band, but unfortunately, the person who needed most to be reminded of it was cowering back on the bus with some anonymous bloke and a half kilo of cocaine.

Practically flying off the stage, Maddie and I hugged each other in triumph, then ran arm in arm backstage. "That was beautiful! See, I knew we could do it," I shrugged, dashing for the sink and towelling the sweat off my face, ripping off my sodden dress, crumpling it in a ball and throwing it into my rucksack before locating a clean shirt and jeans. Actually, I had been terrified that we would fall to pieces at the time, but, buoyed up by the reinforcement of success, my new-found confidence was effusive.

"It was good. It really was good," Maddie agreed, then added under her breath "...though it still feels like mutiny."

Emma emerged from the toilet with a face like a stormcloud, and slumped into a nearby chair.

"Why so glum? We did it!" enthused Maddie.

She shook her head slowly. "I'm just worried. You know what Beth is like. We didn't win this battle, but..." Pausing, she lit the next of a long series of chain-smoked cigarettes. "If this really is some sort of ploy for attention, well... I'm worried that if we don't let her win this bid, she'll keep going with more and more outrageous pleas for attention until we _have_ to take notice."

"That's absurd," I snorted. "She's not six years old any more, and she has to learn to stop acting like it." _She's also not your lover any more, and you need to learn to let go of her_ , I did not add, even under my breath.

"Are you ready to go?" Amy interrupted, sticking her head into the dressing room. "We've brought the tourbus around the back."

Darting out the back door, we stopped to sign autographs for the kids milling around outside the backstage door, smiling widely for photographs, then dashed onto the bus. But as soon as I was onboard, I cringed, having momentarily forgotten the crisis brewing in my band.

"What the fuck is he doing here?" demanded Emma, not even bothering to conceal the contempt in her eyes as she pointed at Beth's little Goth Boy Toy, crumpled in a corner, playing her beloved playstation. "That's my fucking game - get the hell off." Walking over to him, she wrenched the control out of his hands, glowering menacingly at him as he scrambled out of the way. "Get the fuck off our bus."

"Shut up - he stays," snapped Beth, appearing in the door to the passage.

"Really, I don't want to cause any trouble..." lisped the Toy Boy, fluttering to her side like an overgrown bat. His voice was startlingly high, and I realised that underneath the makeup and black velvet, he couldn't have been more than about eighteen.

"Look, we have a specific rule - no groupies on the fucking bus," snarled Emma.

Beth's lip curled up in a cruel sneer. "Well, gee, since Kate has been breaking that rule for the past three weeks, I thought we'd abandoned it."

"That's a completely different situation," Emma sputtered, but it was obvious she was losing the argument.

"How?" Beth turned towards me, her eyes flashing, as if daring me to contradict her, but I had to turn away, biting my lip. Without Thom to back me up, I felt my conviction wavering. After everything, perhaps that was all he'd ever been - a groupie.

"Oh, Jesus," swore Maddie, darting up the steps to the bus and closing the door behind her before anyone else could ask for any more favours. "If I have to sign another autograph, I think my wrists will drop off. Everyone kept asking for you, Beth."

Beth shrugged disinterestedly and walked away, back towards to lounge in the rear, and I felt more than a prick of annoyance. Although she was perfectly willing to hog more than the lion's share of the interviews, she was developing an unbearable attitude towards many of the less pleasant but equally important interactions with the public.

Gathering her game cartridges off the floor, Emma fumed. "That fucking bitch..."

Maddie flopped down into one of the seats, playing distractedly with a toy one of the fans outside the venue had given us. "It's not just what she's doing - it's her whole attitude towards it. I think you might be right, Emma. It's like she's trying to see how far she has to push us before she can get a reaction out of us."

"No, two of us can play this game," snarled Emma.

"Why don't we just skip all these stupid games and just go and ask her what it is she thinks she wants?" I suggested diplomatically.

Emma glared at me, gesturing back towards the door through which Beth had just disappeared. "Be my guest. Go right ahead. No one's stopping you."

I looked back and forth between their faces, then down the long dark corridor, hearing the unmistakable sounds of pleasure emanating from Beth's bunk bed. Jesus Christ, at least Thom and I had tried to be quiet. No matter how many amenities they piled into these tour busses, nothing could quite disguise the fact that the four of us, plus various staff and hangers on, were stuffed into a space the size of the average one-bedroom apartment for literally weeks at a time.

"Are we all ready to go?" asked Amy, finally bringing up the vanguard, climbing up the stairs to the bus and patting the driver on the arm. "Kate, where's Thom? We can't keep waiting for him like this."

"Don't worry about Thom," I sighed, in a tone of voice so sharp that they all turned around to stare. Relenting slightly, I decided I simply didn't want to take the time to explain, covering his absence with only the latest of a long series of lies. "He's... um, he had to go back to the UK to talk to his management to try and tie up some loose ends about the mess over the single. We figured it was easier for him to go than me, as I still had the tour to finish."

Amy nodded, satisfied with the lie, then ducked down the hallway towards the back lounge, but Maddie padded over to me with a sympathetic face, patting me on the back in consolation. "Fancy a game of cards?"

I stared at the deck in her hands, remembering the last tour of the states, as Maddie had taught me how to play Gin Rummy and Go Fish and Old Maid, crossing the vast deserts between western cities. "Sure. I never taught you how to play a real, respectable game like Russian Whist, did I?"

"Honey, I'm from Bensonhurst. I know all those old man games," laughed Maddie, sitting down opposite me and starting to shuffle. "Emma, you in?" She only ever asked as a courtesy - Emma never played.

Looking back and forth between the videogame and the table, Emma smiled wanly, then put the game cartridges down. "Sure. Deal me in."


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out on the road, Kate's life is quickly falling apart, and her prescription tranquillisers no longer paper over the cracks.
> 
> First, Beth goes AWOL from the band, forcing the remaining Charms to muck in together to play a gig without her, and throwing the future of the band into jeopardy.
> 
> Then, a midnight phone call from Damien reveals that he is not as oblivious as he has seemed, and as he puts two and two together, all of Kate's lies unravel.

Over the next day, things almost seemed to get better, as the Gothic Boy Toy kept Beth out of our hair, sparing us the day to day annoyances of life on the bus, but in retrospect, it seemed only the calm before a storm. 

"We're running behind schedule," announced Amy, checking her watch and pulling out her ubiquitous cellphone as the bus turned off the highway into another nondescript Southern city. "We'll just go straight to the venue and do a soundcheck, then go back to the hotel to check in, shower and whatever. Do you think you can find dinner on your own, or should I order something?"

"If I remember from the last tour, the club is right near the main business district, right?" observed Maddie, squinting out the window. "I think we can find something nearby."

But as the bus pulled into the parking lot and deposited us behind the building, Beth squinted distrustfully at the brick walls around her. "Where the fuck is the hotel?" Ooh, I'd forgotten how charming her cocaine come-down moods could be.

"We're not going to the hotel just yet. Weren't you paying attention?"

"Fuck that!" she exploded, whirling around in annoyance as if looking for someone to blame for the inconvenience before stalking off in the opposite direction.

"Where are you going?" demanded Amy, dashing after her.

"To the hotel," tossed back Beth. "This is bullshit. I want a fucking shower."

"You can shower later," insisted Amy, the iron walls of her patience cracking. "You have a job to do first." Beth continued walking, pretending that she had not even heard. "Beth, get back here!" Running after her, Amy seized her by the arm, but Beth turned around, shaking her off. "Beth, you get back in that theatre, or I'll..."

"Or you'll what?" shrugged Beth, her eyes blazing defiance, challenging her to make good on the threat. Emma's suspicions were unfortunately true - deny her one ploy for attention, and she would continue to act out until it was impossible to ignore her. "I didn't think so."

Amy threw up her hands in desperation as Beth strode into the street and attempted to hail a cab. "You're right, Beth. I'm not your fucking mother."

"Damn straight, you're not," threw back Beth childishly, spitting out the words in short, bitten-off sentences. "Cause my mother never gave enough of a shit about me to yell at me. So just quit it, because it's just not going to work. Come on, Wolfie."

"No, I'm just your employee, and I'm just trying to do my fucking job, which, right now, seems to be stopping you from fucking killing yourself," howled Amy, completely losing what was left of her composure as Beth and the Gothic Boy Toy climbed into a cab. "Jesus fucking Christ, I'm just yelling at you for my health, aren't I? Cause I _like_ being here, in the middle of fucking nowhere looking after four spoiled brats while my husband sits back in New Jersey, eating TV dinners and watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with the cats."

Maddie, Emma and I exchanged guilty glances, our hearts sinking.

"Well, it's not like we've never done a soundcheck without Beth before," observed Emma with a wry humourless smile.

Moving closer to Amy, Maddie ventured a tentative squeeze, wrapping her arms lightly around her shoulders. "Are you alright?"

Amy looked up, startled by the spontaneous gesture of affection. "Yeah, yeah, fine. I'm supposed to be the one worrying about you lot, remember." She wiped her eyes, dazed, trying to regain a scrap of her professionalism. "Come on, we're going to be late for soundcheck."

"So we're late for soundcheck. We're always late for soundcheck. The world won't end," I shrugged. "I've been telling you that for years."

"I suppose you're right, but someone has to be the voice of reason, and at least pretend to follow a schedule," persisted Amy.

"That's what we keep you for, dear," Maddie laughed.

"Amy..." I ventured, tapping her gently on the shoulder until she turned around. "About the other night... in New Orleans. I'm sorry... I shouldn't have..."

Amy smiled graciously, shaking her head, her feathers ruffled and her pride bruised, but her poise intact. "It's OK. There's no need to apologise." She paused, cocking her head to one side as she observed me. "But the fact that you did means a lot to me. I was only angry when I said... you're not really spoiled brats. This is just a pressure cooker of a job. Some of us just handle it better than others."

"And you're not just an employee," I insisted. "Don't ever say that."

She laughed out loud. "Yeah, if you lot ever do go to the Brits, Joe Forester and I will be the proudest parents there."

Trying to push Beth's behaviour out of our minds, we bashed our way through an uneventful soundcheck, then retired to the Holiday Inn to shower, change and find something to eat. But as the desk clerk found us our room keys, Amy eyed them suspiciously, counting one too many. 

"Wait, has Mercedes Neiman-Marcus not checked in yet?" she demanded, looking up at the clerk worriedly.

"No, madam," snickered the clerk, trying to maintain his composure, though we all took pride in competing to make up the most ridiculous assumed names.

"I thought she said she was heading back to the hotel to take a shower," I wondered out loud, stating the obvious.

"Obviously, not this hotel," sighed Amy, handing my keys. "Well, Emma, I booked Kate her own room, since I assumed she'd be with Thom, so if you don't want to share with Maddie, you can take Beth's."

"One woman's misfortune is another woman's gain," smirked Emma, twirling the keyring around her finger.

"You don't think she's going to turn up for the gig," worried Maddie out loud.

"Well, if she wants to go out and find her own hotel, she can bloody well pay for it herself and find her own way back there after the show," announced Amy, picking her bag off the floor and heading for the elevator.

After 12 hours with greasy, sweaty post-gig hair, it was a relief to shower and change into fresh clothes. Padding about the room, towelling my hair dry, I noticed connecting doors. "Hey, who's next to me?" I demanded, swinging mine open and pounding on the other door.

"Boo!" burst out Maddie, swinging hers open, staring at me wild-eyed, her wet hair all sticking on end.

"Ooh, leave it like that," I teased. "The punk rock look - I like it. Where are we going for dinner?"

"Emma saw an Indian place down the street," she replied, hanging upside down to towel her hair. "Hand me my gel - I think I will sport the Rod Stewart look tonight. Emma! Are you ready yet?"

"Hang on, hang on..."

I hated to admit it, but without Beth around, the decrease in tension was almost tangible. The three of us found ourselves laughing, joking and giggling our way through the meal with a lightness we hadn't felt in weeks. Perhaps, on my part, some of it was the joy of rediscovering my companions after being closeted up alone with Thom for what seemed like weeks, but that there was definitely something else, as the closer we got to the club, the darker our moods became.

"Do you think she'll be in any sort of shape to actually do the bloody show?" muttered Emma, putting into words what we'd obviously all been thinking, from the way our faces dropped.

"I don't want to think about it.," sighed Maddie, waving jauntily to the gaggles of kids lining up in front of the venue. She had always been the best at taking care of the fans, and they loved her for it.

"Is she here yet?" I demanded of Amy, pacing up and down in front of the ticket booth, her cellphone clutched to her ear. She shook her head grimly, then resumed her conversation.

Her shoulders slumped, Emma stalked over to the stage, ripped one of our setlists down off the monitors, then sat down at a table backstage, checking off songs with a marker.

"What are you doing?" I inquired, almost afraid to ask.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

Bending closer, I realised that the songs were being divided up, and a "K", an "E" or an "M" placed next to each one, except for a few unlucky titles, which were firmly crossed out. "Taking no chances, I see," I sighed, then went back over to sit down next Maddie, tapping out a rhythm to the drumbeat of the opening band, currently finishing up their soundcheck. "Do you think she'll be in any shape to sing?" I asked, playing distracted with the ring I'd never quite managed to take off.

Maddie turned towards me, her brown eyes clouded. "At this point, I'm worried if she'll even turn up at all."

The minutes ticked by without any sign of her, though all of our eyes kept wandering back to the door. The doors opened, the house lights went down, and the opening act went out onto the stage, but still Beth had not appeared. The opening band were drawing near to the end of their set; after nearly a month on the road with them, I knew it so well I could probably play it myself. Any minute now, Beth was going to come flying through that door, her hair streaming out behind her, her eyes wild with drugs. Amy was pacing back and forth nervously, shouting at the roadies, staying off her cellphone in case Beth tried to call, but I knew in my heart that it was useless.

The opening band finished and poured off the stage, leaving the roadies to take down their equipment and set ours up, but still Beth had not appeared. "Dammit, let me call the front door again," swore Amy, punching buttons on her cellphone. "You've not seen her? You know the minute she turns up, send her backstage. No... no... we have no intention of cancelling the show, I assure you... she'll be here soon! Bye!" Folding up the cellphone, she shook her head. "I don't know whether to start calling the hospitals, or..." her voice trailed off as if she did not want to think about the alternatives. "We can probably stall them for another twenty minutes or so, but this state has an early closing law, which means you've got to get on by 10:30 at the latest if you are going to get in an hour and a half set."

"Well, it won't be an hour and a half if Beth doesn't turn up," Emma observed, holding up her mutilated setlist.

Time ticked by, the manager of the venue growing slowly more frantic as we showed no sign of heading towards the stage, but Amy stood her ground, finding one thing after an another that had to be seen to, stalling to buy us time to wait for Beth. But 10:25, it became obvious that she was not going to show. If it hadn't been for the successful encore the previous night, I would have been in a blind panic at the thought of going on without her, but we shrugged our shoulders, gritted our teeth and padded our way onto the stage.

"Good evening," announced Maddie into her vocal mic. The task of breaking our slightly pared down state to The Kids had fallen to her, as she'd always been the best at relating to them. "I hope you're all having a good time out there..." In her distinctive Brooklyn accent, the cliché sounded heartfelt and warm, greeted by a wave of agreement from the audience. "I've got a little bad news for you, unfortunately. Tonight, Beth is not going to be able to make it just yet, so we're going to play you a couple of songs, just the three of us. Is that OK?" 

A ripple of disappointment went up from the crowd, but off towards the back, a cheer went up from a loud male voice. "Whoo, yeah! Maddie!" Others followed suit, and soon the place was cheering almost as wildly as before the announcement.

Feeling slightly more encouraged, I approached the mic. "Wait, how are we going to start this now?" I asked nervously, since Beth had usually started the song a capella.

"Just play the damn song!" howled a heckler in the front row.

"Shut up!" snapped back a chorus of other voices.

Emma started to play an arpeggio of the first chord progression, while Maddie tapped out the rhythm of the beat. Why were there so many fucking K's on Emma's version of the setlist? With a start, I realised that I had written the music, if not the tune and words for most of them. This one was easy enough, from those nerve-wracking days when I'd first met Alex. I could probably sing it in my sleep if I had to, though at some point in the recording of the album, Beth had taken over the lead vocal. She had turned it into a sexual, knowing torch song, when in truth, it was a simple crush song, full of yearning and tenderness.

" _So how I am supposed to sleep? My head's so full of you I could burst. It's eating me awake, can't fall asleep can't concentrate..._ "The rest of the band was joining in now, my hands sliding up the neck of the bass as the melody soared up the scale. " _I watch the sun slide up the sky, I greet the dawn with weary eyes, I'm getting dressed, my mind's a mess, I'm filled with dizziness_..."

The rest of the band joined in for the glorious harmony on the chorus. " _Do you ever think of me at night, before you close your eyes? Do you sleep, do you dream, do you fantasise? There, I've said it, what's your reply?_ "

I started to open up, stepping into the role of frontwoman with greater confidence, thrilled at the way my voice soared out over the crowd, every eye focused on me. In a scary, dizzying moment, for a second, I almost hoped that Beth never turned up, then hated myself for thinking it. The song ended, and the wave of applause hit me like never before. _Careful, Kate,_ I warned myself. _This is how it starts. You'll be as egocentric as Beth before long._

But out in the crowd, the punters were going wild. "Co-dependent Love Song!" screamed out someone in the front row, on my side of the audience.

"Bloody hell," I muttered into the mic, drawing back in surprise. Thank god Beth wasn't here, or I would have hell to pay. "How the hell do you know about that?" 

They repeated the request again more loudly, adding the name of the Charms internet mailing list, and Emma chuckled loudly. "That thing will be the death of us yet." Putting her hand to her head, she squinted out into the audience, adding, "Sorry, we can't do that without Thom, and he just went home."

"Emma!" I hissed, then suddenly realised that my reaction added credence to what she had probably intended as a joke. A couple of faces in the front row lit up with curiosity, bending over to make comments to each other, and I suddenly had the vague notion that in a few hours, this particular tidbit of information would be parcelled into bytes and spread out across the globe via telephone wires and computers. 

As we launched into the next song, I started to reflect on Emma's reaction. She had always hated the song, when I tried to bring an embryonic version into rehearsals. No, wait a minute, Emma had liked the quirky melody. And it was Maddie who had originally suggested pairing it with a dance beat. We had jammed on it a few times at my old house on the Upper East Side - why had it never made it to tape until I'd played it for Thom?

Beth. With the annoyance at her irresponsibility in deliberately missing the gig rankling, I suddenly started remembering every fight the band had every had, every compromise that we had instigated on her behalf. God, just watch her turn up dead or in hospital now, I thought to myself guiltily, afraid to jinx myself with my pride. Guiltily, I dragged my attention back to the music, and the cue I had almost missed.

 

 

We pulled it off. It was patchy, even shaky in places, but overall, I was almost surprised at how seamlessly the rest of the band pulled together to cover Beth's absence. With a little work, we could almost... No! It had just been a last-minute, one-off, never to be repeated fluke. As soon as she realised that we hadn't catered to her little hissy fit, Beth would be back, we would sit down, work things out and the band would be back to normal.

"So, have you heard from her?" I demanded of Amy during the brief ride back to the hotel. From the frantic expression on her face, I already knew the answer, but I needed to assuage the vague twinge of guilt by at least asking.

"No," sighed Amy, folding up her cellphone and massaging her temples with her fingers. "I've called the office in New York in case she tried to make contact there, but nothing. I even called the fucking emergency rooms around the area to see if anyone matching her description has been admitted."

"Anything turn up?" I asked nervously, my stomach doing flip flops.

Amy shook her head. "Thank god, no, but... I don't know if that's a good sign or not. I've tried contacting the police, but there's a 24 hour waiting period before you can file a missing persons report." She paused, digging in her pocket to make sure her cellphone was still on. "It's bad - I've read so many murder mysteries that I already know the whole protocol and procedure, but, well... I've got far too active an imagination."

I squirmed guiltily in my seat, wondering if this was how nerve-wracking the weeks during which Alex and I had disappeared had been. "Well, it's not like none of us have ever disappeared before," I cracked idly, trying to diffuse the tension.

Maddie and Emma both stared at me, aghast. "It's not anything like the same thing!" Emma sputtered, then looked moodily out the window.

"I'm sorry," I apologised, instantly contrite. I had always been the last to join, the least important, the most disposable. My leaving the band was not a crisis. Beth's leaving the band was.

"It's not you that should be apologising," sighed Emma. "I mean, with all the crap going on in your life, we understood. Your ex-boyfriend had just killed himself. You were pregnant ..."

"I didn't know either of those things when I left," I pointed out, bristling. "Hindsight is 20/20, you know. None of us knows for certain what's going on in Beth's life - perhaps she had a damned good reason for leaving us up shit creek..."

"We sounded alright, though, I thought," interjected Maddie diplomatically. "I thought it sounded pretty good, considering. Didn't you?"

Thankfully, we pulled up outside the hotel at that juncture, cutting off any further conversation as we scrambled to the curb. Amy approached the front desk hopefully, looking for any sign of Beth, but returned to the lift, shaking her head. Sparing her the formality of even asking, I simply punched the button of our floor and headed for my room.

Flopping gratefully onto the bed, I spread myself out, exhausted, but it wasn't until I rolled over, expecting the comfort of an encircling pair of arms to be there, that I remembered that Thom was gone. He had been travelling with me, sleeping by my side, for so long now that I had almost forgotten what it was like to climb into a cold, empty bed. Only a few days ago, we had fought and made love and fallen asleep in each others arms in a pattern that had come to be reassuring in its consistency. Now, where was he? I pictured him crumpled in a seat in an airport somewhere, his face twisted into that contrary knot of defiance and vulnerability that I had started to love. Suddenly, I remembered how much he hated airports and train stations and things like that... Now where had we had that conversation?

My mind flashed back to a combination truck stop and bus depot, somewhere in the middle of the desert, Thom aimlessly kicking pebbles around the parking lot, hands in his pockets, shoulders in a dejected slump. He had said that airports and stations made him feel intensely lonely in their anonymous efficiency, and I'd laughed at the idea that he had seen anything even resembling that in the quaint, rusticated diner, gas station and waiting room. I loved airports, they made me feel so purposeful, full of expectation, like I was really going somewhere, on my way to a new life and a new beginning.

But with a start, I realised that too many of the new lives and new beginnings had been forced upon me, until I'd grown to accept, even expect constant change and revision as a way of life. Anything that was static couldn't be safe - it was better to tear it up and start again before someone else could snatch it away from you. With a start, I turned to impart this sudden revelation to the man at my shoulder, and remembered that I was alone. I always ended up alone, didn't I? The last time I'd had this conversation with myself had been on an aeroplane over the Atlantic, rubbing my pregnant belly and pondering the twists of fortune that had brought me and this tiny, living creature inseparably together.

Except we hadn't been exactly inseparable, had we? Tristram had seen to that... My father, my brother, my son, and now my husband - they all left me in the end, didn't they? I went to my bags and dug for my prescription, swallowing down two or three without even bothering with water, longing for the oblivion that they brought. Then, curling up in a ball in the middle of the bed, I grabbed onto the pillow and held on for all I was worth, stuffing the cover into my mouth to keep from crying out loud as I waited for the numbness to take hold.

As if sensing my distress, the phone chose that moment to interrupt my misery with its electronic bleat. "Go away," I hissed at it, hoping that whoever it was would simply give up. It was probably only Maddie wanting to know if I wanted to order room service, or Emma, eager to pick apart some nuance of the set. Four rings, five rings, and whoever it was showed no sign of giving up. "Alright, alright," I muttered, rolling over to the other side of the bed, Thom's side of the bed, usually, and picking up the receiver. "What do you want?" I growled in a voice I hoped was convincing enough to dissuade whoever was bothering me.

"Kate?" Damien's voice crackled across the line of a bad transatlantic connection.

"Damien!" My heart leapt. Good old faithful, constant, loving, understanding Damien. Damien would know what to do; Damien could help me through this, cut apart the tangled threads of my life and get things into the order that I so desperately needed. "I am so glad to hear your voice..."

"Are you?" He sounded disgruntled, even vaguely annoyed, and I suddenly recalled the circumstances under which our last conversation had been cut short. Without even giving me a chance to respond, he ploughed on. "Do you possibly have a moment to talk now? I mean, are you _alone_?" His voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Um... I can talk..." Glancing at the clock, a quick mental calculation revealed that it was probably just before 9am in England. What the hell was Damien doing up this early? He was _not_ a morning person by any stretch of the imagination.

"I spent most of yesterday in discussion with my lawyers in the States, and MVC, with assurances that this whole mess could be resolved amicably, and without litigation, for a cut of the royalties."

"Yes," I stuttered, trying to pull my wits back about me. He had called me at 3 in the morning, local time, to tell me this? "That's what Rob at MVC told me."

"So why, at 8:30 this morning, did Dale call me, telling me that papers have been served by Radioshack's management, containing an immediate injunction to block distribution or sale of the single, and a further lawsuit for a million pounds?"

"What?" I stuttered, trying to mentally calculate the time zone difference between New Orleans and the UK. Thom had to be back in England by now. "When?"

"I told you. This morning. What difference does it make?" He paused, obviously chewing something over in the back of his mind. "Kate, where is Thom Eboracum?"

"I... I... don't know," I answered truthfully. "England, I assume."

He took a deep breath, and I could practically see him rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb, smoothing out the deep crease that developed there was he was riled up in any way. "MVC told me that he was there, in person, at the emergency meeting you had with them in New Orleans."

"He was," I conceded. With Damien, I never quite knew what he was getting at, so I figured it was better to stick to the simplest, truest answers that left the least opportunity for him to twist my words around.

"So how is good old Thom doing? Is he still there?" His voice was shaking with poorly concealed anger, despite the sarcastic attempt at social niceties.

"No, he flew back the next morning. Probably nearly 24 hours ago now," I added, with precision too suspicious for plausible denial. "What is this about, Damien?" I accused, deciding to go on the attack. "If you have something to say, just come out and say it." Half of me wanted to just break down and confess everything, but the other half remained defiant, still believing I could cover my guilt with some sort of misplaced bravado.

"Kate, I don't know how to say this, but... I've heard things." He paused, and I could hear the flare of his lighter, imagining him lighting a cigarette, sitting with his feet up on the work desk in his studio, using the floor as an ashtray, a bad habit I'd tried to talk him out of hundreds of times, considering the age of our building and the flammability of his artists' materials. "Normally, I don't believe a damned thing I read in the tabloids, as we both know how they make things up. But... there are just too many things that don't quite add up."

"So what did you read? Please... the News of the World and the Sun have been out to get me from Day One," I snorted contemptuously.

"It was in the NME, Kate. A little article about the release of the single. Which just happened to mention that the internet has been buzzing with gossip about the two of you, since you had been spotted on tour together. So, of course, me being the curious trouble-maker I am, I thought I'd log on and see what the fuss was about, maybe even see if I could add a little smoke to the fire, since, well, it doesn't exactly hurt sales of the record to have all the free publicity of a fake scandal."

Ah, good old Damien, ever the businessman. Even through my misplaced anger, I couldn't help but admire his spunk.

"So, I checked out a couple of sites, read a few gossip pages, laughing at first, at many of the inaccuracies - did you know that you had Jeremy Kane murdered?"

"Oh god, not that again," I sighed. "It's taken on a life of its own, and won't go away. The thing that always makes me laugh is the lyrics pages. I swear, we are going to put lyric sheets on the next album, just so people get them right. Or maybe not. Thom says when he get stuck for lyrics, he'll go read Radioshack pages for inspiration," I laughed dryly, just trying desperately to change the subject, distract him with anything but the subject at hand. The fucking internet... of course! How could I have been so stupid as to think that someone wouldn't have noticed Thom and I together. If they could transfer soundfiles of a UK-only record release in the matter of days, god knows what they could do with a snowballing personal rumour...

"I laughed it off, at first, really I did. I mean, honestly, the things that they come up with. One girl posted to the Charms News Group that she had talked to you in Boise, Idaho, or somewhere like that, that she had gone to dinner with you and one _Damon Hurts_ , during which the two of us apparently boasted that we were going to Las Vegas to get married in the Elvis Chapel. Then she went on to claim that you gave her a bass-playing lesson, apparently right in the middle of the street, no less."

"Active imagination, these kids," I quipped

"Well, she nearly got flamed off the newsgroup, apparently, as not ten minutes later, another person wrote in and accused her of being a compulsive liar, quoting some article or other in one of your beloved tabloids, which had reported, at least partially truthfully, that the night of your show in Boise, Alex, Keef and I had been engaged on a pub crawl through Soho, during which we reportedly bought a taxi cab to carry us between clubs for £1000."

"Did you really?" I laughed, picturing the image quite easily.

"Not exactly," guffawed Damien, momentarily distracted. "More like commandeered it for our personal use for an evening. I think the bill we ran up on it was something like £500, so we joked that next time we were going to buy a cab and spare ourselves the bother..." He sounded immensely proud of these exploits, and I felt a sudden twinge of regret that I had not been there to participate. "But anyway, I digress. Rather than be properly told off by this admonition, this SeasonSalt@aol.com character proceeded to start an entire flamewar, insisting that she had seen you, that she had seen you specifically making out with this person, and eventually, to prove she'd met you, scanned in a copy of a scrawled-out bass tab that did look indeed suspiciously like your handwriting."

"Oh, I sign these things for these kids all the time," I stuttered by way of explanation. "People want me to write out the damnedest things sometimes. Yeah, I think I did tab out a song for someone somewhere. _The Boy Hairdresser_ , I think it was, which is funny, because that's the one Charms record I didn't play bass on. A bit ironic, really."

"Someone else pointed that out during the flamewar," Damien informed me, somewhat testily, annoyed by the interruptions. 

God, did these people know more about my career than I did?

"The whole thing would be rather funny, by itself, except for the fact that, two days later, someone posted that a friend of theirs had seen you and Emma come into a Truckstop in Denver, Colorado, with a guy who looked a lot like Thom Eboracum. He says that his friend didn't get to ask for an autograph, as you went to another register to buy your cowboy shirts, but he swears that this short, red-headed fellow had an English accent." He paused, to let the words sink in, or perhaps just thinking up his next line of attack.

I opened my mouth to speak, to deny it, then closed it again, the silence almost unbearable. No matter what I said at this point, it didn't really seem to matter; it was like a car slipping its brake and slowly but irretrievably rolling down a hill away from me.

"So, I thought, well, no, that can't be. They're just saying this because it was, coincidentally, just around the time that we announced plans to release the single. But then, just to make sure, I looked up the date on the post, and the date we announced the single. The Denver thing was posted 12 hours before the first advance press release even left Dale's office."

I swallowed, loudly, but did not reply.

"Do you care to comment on this, yet, or do you want me to keep going?" he demanded.

I tried to speak, tried to force sound through my dry lips, but literally could not.

"Salt Lake City, another day later, there is another sighting of you and the little Red-Headed Boy." Damien spat the formerly friendly epithet with unmitigated spite. "You are reported as coming out of the backstage door, arm in arm, then retreating to the aftershow party, growing steadily more drunk and unruly, snogging, and I quote, _'rubbing up against each other in a very sexual fashion, exchanging saliva, and generally fawning all over each other.'_ Do you want me to go on?"

Salt Lake City? I couldn't even remember it to deny it. We'd always thought we were being so careful not to be seen together, well, obviously that caution had gone out the window with inebriation.

Damien's voice was raw and ragged as if he were on the verge of tears. He was always the strong one, always the one that held me up, but it seemed as if all the emotions he had been bottling up for so long were bursting at the seams, spilling out into his voice. "A few days later, someone says that they took a photograph after a show in Phoenix, Arizona, in which they think they got photographic proof of this mysterious red-headed boy. It's a blurry shot of you and Emma, posing with your arms around each others shoulders, holding your fingers above each others heads to make rabbit ears, but it must be one of those automatic focus cameras, because it's perfectly focused in the background, and you can quite plainly see someone who is very obviously Thom Eboracum standing behind you, laughing. It's too dark to see his hair-colour, which caused yet another thread of debate, but I'm looking at this thing right now, and it's that lazy-eyed psycho alright, I can tell by that crooked little smile of his."

His voice shook, and he took a moment to collect his thoughts, while I tried to remember this photograph. People were always snapping shots of us getting off and on the bus, and things like that. Emma and I were both natural hams, mugging for the cameras.

"At this point, the posts are all in a terrible mess, cross-posted all over the place with alt.music.radioshack, as everyone is arguing back and forth over whether it's him or not. Seems there's been a rumour floating round the Radioshack newsgroup for weeks that Thom has broken up with his girlfriend, someone's mum's cousin's roommate saw her down the grocery store, and you know how these things go... You're developing quite a little reputation as a home-wrecker on several Radioshack Bulletin Boards. They're saying this thing started while you were still in England, working on the single, which I thought I knew for a fact to be utter and complete bollocks, but... well, now I'm not so sure."

My heart lurched with a sickening thud in my chest. So much for trying to protect Ruth from the news... God, how stupid we had been to think that we could walk away from this with no one being any the wiser.

His voice ranted on, almost dispassionately, as if he were simply reading the newspaper. "From Dallas, Texas, we have the first conclusive 'proof' - someone posted a link to a webpage, which is apparently just a shrine to this toilet plunger, that some girl gets polaroids of her favourite musicians holding when they come through town. Photos and dates and names on each page - 'September 18th, 1998, Deep Ellum, Kate Gordon of the Charms and Thom Eboracum of Radioshack mug it up with the infamous Plunger.'"

I gulped nervously, pressing my fingers to my eyes, wondering when I was going to wake up and the bad dream go away. How long did I think I could get away with it? What the hell had I been thinking? Well, I'd certainly not dreamed that Thom would be gone, leaving me to clear up the mess on my own. Suddenly I hated him for being such a coward, then realised that I was the cowardly one, first for not saying no to Thom, and then for not telling Damien.

There was silence for a few moments before Damien plunged into the gulf. "You know, everyone warned me about you when we first started seeing each other."

_Everyone? Alex Jones, more likely._

"Don't get involved with her, don't get attached to her; she's a compulsive cheat and a compulsive liar. But I thought, _no, I'm a big boy, I can handle this. I love her; she's obviously made for me, and I'm made for her, like two halves of the same mould! I can make her love me so much she never even gets the urge to look at another man_."

I choked back a sob, remembering the conversation we'd had on the roof of his building the morning after we'd got engaged.

"I believed in you, because I fucking loved you more than I thought I loved myself. But I have to ask you now, yes, or no, are you having an affair with Thom Eboracum?"

For a terrifying minute, I considered my option, considered debating semantics. Define affair - did it technically count as an affair if I was married to the person I was being accused of cheating with? The relationship, whatever it was, was in the past tense. Damien's question was in the present tense, so no longer technically applicable...

"Yes. Yes, I had an affair with Thom." I didn't know if it was a last, childish, desperate act of fear, or the first grown-up responsible thing I'd done in the entire situation, but I told the truth. "It's over now, I swear, but... yes. It did happen."

Damien exhaled in a long, torturous sigh. "God fucking damn it... _Why?_ Wasn't I good to you? Haven't I given you everything you ever wanted? Why, Kate, why?"

"Damien, no..." I gasped. "You don't know the whole story... it's so complicated, there's more to it than..."

"Yeah, you're damn right I don't know the whole story, because I don't know _any_ of the story!" Damien exploded. I had learned to tell the difference between Damien pretending to be outraged for the sake of an argument, and Damien truly annoyed, but this was something different entirely.

"No matter what, Damien, you have to believe that I love you..." I started to protest, but he cut me off angrily.

"Don't fucking give me that bullshit. I don't even care if it's true. How can you claim to love someone, and then hurt them like this? You are... you're so fucking selfish! Perhaps this is the last twist of ironic fate, as it's an accusation that's been levelled at me several times in the course of my life. Perhaps I deserve this, given my history..."

"You've never even told me your history," I tossed back, a futile, half hearted attempt at defending myself, though I knew the battle was already lost. I didn't even want to hurt him any more by putting up a fight; I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die. "You were married before, and I never even knew..."

"Yeah, I was, once upon a time. I was about 18, fresh out of school, before I even went to college. It was so long ago, I tend to forget about it. But what, Kate, does this have to do with anything?"

I opened my mouth, and tried to force out the words that I had married Thom in a stupid, drunken mistake, trying to beg for forgiveness, wanting him to scream at me, be angry at me, then finally absolve me, but the sounds themselves literally would not form.

"Do you love him, Kate? Is that it? He's one of those pretty, skinny little pop stars that you love so much? Can he give you what I can't?"

" _No!_ " I tried to protest, but I was crying so hard, my body wracked with great silent, heaving sobs, that I had seemingly lost all power of reason. What the hell could I even say? There was no way I could even justify or defend myself. I knew that what I had done was wrong, and I had done it anyway.

"Answer me... _Kate_!" His voice was ragged, desperate, but I was afraid to answer, for fear that I would only end up hurting him more. "Oh, this is fucking pointless. This is where I get off, Kate. I'm done. We are through." The line clicked and went dead, leaving me curled in foetal position, all alone in the huge, empty bed.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere on tour in the Deep South, Kate Gordon hits rock bottom, her life spiralling out of control on prescription drugs. Thom Eboracum is using the internet to wreak havoc in her life. Beth is still missing from the tour, until a mysterious message makes it clear that she considers the split to be permanent. Can Emma save her former lover, even at the expense of her pride, and can Kate save herself?

Miserable, feverish, and feeling terribly, terribly alone, I barely slept a wink that night, lying staring up at the ceiling. In five hours I would have to get up and drive to the next city, the next gig, and re-enact the same lop-sided joke of a performance all over again. It seemed so pointless and so futile, the same set performed over and over again for months at a stretch until the songs no longer had any meaning, the same way a word becomes divorced from its definition with repetition. Alone and abandoned, the band was the only thing left holding me together from day to day, but at this point, even the future of that seemed uncertain.

Crawling out of bed, I dragged myself to my suitcase, and dug through my things until I found the bottles of pills. The course of antibiotics was long since finished, but I knew I still had some of the tranquillisers left. They seemed to have less and less effect as the tour wore on, but if I took another two, those at least might help me sleep. Wrestling with the childproof cap, I shook a couple into my hands, then realised with a start that I only had two left. How had I managed to swallow a two month supply in only a few weeks? Perhaps I had grown more reliant on them than I had thought. 

Squinting at the directions on the bottle, I peeled back the warning labels to see if there were any refills. Oh, thank god, there were. With a new sense of purpose, I pulled back on my clothes, slipped out of the hotel and set out down the street to the all night pharmacy at the end of the street.

"May I see some form of ID, Miss?" demanded the woman at the counter, peering over the top of her bifocals to look me up and down, taking in my outlandish clothes, my ratty hair and the dark rings under my eyes, as if wondering whether to call the cops.

Digging in my pocket, I managed to procure a drivers license, praying that the doctor had put my home address on the label.

The pharmacist glanced back and forth between the drivers license and the vial of pills a few times, then glanced down at me, sliding the license back across the register once she was satisfied that I was indeed Kate Gordon of New York, NY. "You live in New York. But this prescription was written by a doctor in Portland, Oregon," she observed. "You're an awfully long way from home, aren't you, honey?"

"It was prescribed for me while on a business trip," I growled, annoyed at being forced to explain myself. _Just give me the fucking pills, I'm obviously not a street junkie._ "I have to travel a lot for business. I'm a bit of a white knuckle flyer, and these calm my nerves."

"And what business would that be, hon?" she demanded, in a friendly but firm tone that made it quite clear she wasn't going to lift a finger to help me until her nosy curiosity was satisfied.

"I'm a musician," I explained, rolling my eyes.

"Humph," snorted the pharmacist, holding the vial at arms length to peer at the label. "The original prescription was filled at a pharmacy in Oregon, it looks like. I'm not sure we can refill it for you without a copy of the original prescription."

"It's the same chain - can't you call them and ask them for it?" I demanded crankily.

The pharmacist took another breath and sighed deeply, annoyed at the thought of actually having to work, as if she'd been contemplating a nap until I showed up and forced her to do her job. "I can call them. This may take a while, though."

"Fine." Wandering away from the counter, I meandered towards the magazine rack, picking up a copy of Rolling Stone, apparently the only rock magazine to penetrate this far into the Deep South, wondering if they'd got around to reviewing our album. Yes, there was a tiny little blurb in the back pages, complete with a picture of the album cover, and a silly promo shot of us dressed up in 1960's period wigs and gowns.

"No reading the magazines without paying for them," barked the pharmacist from across the store. "This is not a library."

"I have every intention of purchasing it," I shot back, irritated at her attitude. No wonder I was the only customer in here, if this was how they treated their clientele. Tucking it under my arm, I wandered on along the aisles, chuckling at the photo, contemplating shoving it under the nose of the supercilious pharmacist. Then again, who would recognise me in the strawberry blond beehive wig I'd donned as a joke? Actually, the colour was quite pretty, I reflected, turning the corner into the dangerous area where they kept the hair care products. Whenever you get the urge to fuck up your life, fuck up your hair instead; it had far less lasting consequences. If I'd simply dyed my hair red myself instead of messing around with red-headed boys, none of this would ever have happened. Empty, exhausted and slap-happy from lack of sleep, this seemed like such a funny joke that I swooped down and picked up a packet of hair dye.

"You're in luck," snorted the pharmacist, obviously miserable at being denied the opportunity to snub me, as I walked back to the counter, placing my purchases in a big heap. "They faxed it over. Here you go. Anything else?"

I shook my head, gazing lovingly as the new, full vial of pills disappeared inside my package. Barely even waiting until I was out of the store, I tore the paper open and knocked one back, waiting for the waves of calmness to restore my troubled mind to a tolerable state.

By the time I got back to the hotel, I still had not had the desired effects of peace of tranquillity. Curse that old bitch if she'd given me sugar pills instead... it didn't even cross my mind that weeks of abuse could have raised my tolerance to the drug. Popping another dose, I picked up the box of hair-dye and headed for the bathroom. In a ritual familiar from years of teenage punkdom, I parted my hair with a comb, mixed the peroxide and the toner together, donned the plastic gloves and started to squeeze the smelly lotion onto my scalp.

10 minutes later, my head was covered in a sticky red goo, but my mind was still racing. Jesus Christ, did these pills have no effect whatsoever? Padding back out to the bedroom, I popped another one, then flopped down on the bed to wait for the minutes to tick by until I had to rinse the dye out.

 

I woke with a start to the ringing of the telephone, and realised that the room was flooded with light, and that it was well into the morning. Sitting up, I felt stickiness everywhere, dark red liquid clumped all over the bed and the pillow. Jesus Christ, what had happened? Was I bleeding? The phone...

"Hullo," I croaked, leaving a sticky smear across the receiver as I picked it up.

"Wake-up call, Miss Gordon," burbled the polite efficient voice at the other end.

"What time is it?"

"11 o'clock, ma'am. Check out is in an hour."

"Thank you..."

I sat up abruptly, staring in dismay at the wreckage of the bed, trying to shrug off the effects of a triple dose of tranquillisers. The hair dye... Jesus Christ, what had I done to myself, leaving it on for so long? 6 hours... I would be amazed if I had any hair left at this point.

Hauling myself into the bathroom, I stared at the dark-haired stranger in the mirror, her neck and shoulders stained with dark strawberry-coloured blotches. Picking up the comb, I poked at it apprehensively, but my hair, dried and crusted, appeared to be nearly black.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I muttered to myself, peeling off my clothes and stepping into the shower, scrubbing repeatedly at my head with first the shampoo, and then the body soap. With all the dye going down the drain, surely some of the colour had to be lifting. God, this stuff would not come off my hands, staining my fingers and palms. Stepping out of the shower, I cleared the steam off the mirror, and stared with dismay at the dark-haired Lady MacBeth in my reflection. Without the golden hair floating in a cloud around my shoulders, I looked pale and thin and drawn, the dark circles under my eyes only heightened by the severity of the colour.

Wandering around the room, picking up my clothes and trying to clean up a bit of the mess of my bed, it slowly dried to a dark, Pre-Raphaelite auburn, but I still started every time I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror. Damn, didn't I have a hat anywhere? With considerable dismay, I straightened my back, threw my bag over my shoulder and marched downstairs to face the jibes of my bandmates.

They nearly didn't recognise me at first, practically walking straight past me, until Emma stopped and stared, then burst out laughing. "Well, that'll work - if Beth doesn't turn up tonight, we'll just dress you up like her, and no one will know the difference."

I cringed, turning away before the tears could sting my eyes. My entire personality just felt like an open wound this morning; the slightest comment would reduce me to a snivelling, crying mess. "I don't want to talk about it. I look like shit, and I know it."

"No, no, Kate," protested Maddie, leaping to my defence. "It looks nice. In the sun, it's got some gorgeous red highlights."

Amy appeared at the door to the bus with a shocked expression. "Jesus, Kate, what have you done to yourself?"

"Just shut up!" I whined, wishing I could simply crawl into a hole and die.

"You've just got red splotches all over you face - you look like you've got some sort of a disease," giggled Emma, picking at my hair.

"Next time you feel like a change, just ask me and we'll take you to a proper hairdresser," clarified Amy diplomatically.

"Hush, Emma," warned Maddie, digging in her bag. "I've got some exfoliate and some apricot scrub in my makeup case - we'll get those splotches off you."

Amy sat down opposite us, dialling numbers on her cellphone, watching the almost clinical operation with slight bemusement, though her face darkened as the person on the other end picked up. "Hi, Gail, it's Amy. Any news?"

My heart lurched as I realised that she was speaking to her office, wondering if Thom's little temper tantrum had expanded as far as our management.

"Nothing? Damn. I don't know whether to stay here in case she turns up, or keep going on to the next gig. How far is the estimated drive time... Shit, that long? Damn, we better get a move on... No, we're not going to cancel the gigs. Better make an announcement through the usual channels that Beth will most likely not be performing at tonight's gig, and if anyone wants their money back, well, to speak to the promoters... There's been rumours about _what_ on the internet?" My heart skipped a beat. "Hang on a minute." She covered the phone with her hand as she turned towards me. "Gail back at the office has been monitoring _Treasure Trail_ , the Charms Internet Mailing List, to see if maybe anyone has seen Beth. She says that there is a whole controversy of gossip raging right now, as to what the story is with you and Thom Eboracum. Do you want to issue some sort of official statement, to put these rumours to rest before they get out of hand? Some of them are quite outrageous."

I peered at her defiantly through the green goo that Maddie was spreading across my forehead. What was the point in lying? Damien knew part of it, he might as well know the whole truth. But what about Ruth, my conscience pricked, if Thom had indeed gone back to England to try and work things out with her? Well, bloody hell, she had a right to know the truth, too, as it seemed Thom had never bothered telling her either. A pinprick of jealousy peered through the righteous indignation as I thought of Thom's lawsuit, and I suddenly grew angry at Thom for turning on Damien like that.

"Have Radioshack issued a statement?" I demanded, and Amy repeated my request down her phone, stopping to listen to some time to Gail's insect drone on the other end.

"No. In fact, that's the weird thing. Gail said Radioshack's mailing list went offline this morning, and huge chunks of their messageboard have been deleted overnight. Something very weird is going on with the newsgroup, too. People keep saying their posts about Codependent Love Song aren't turning up, but the posts complaining that stuff is being filtered are definitely are showing."

"What? Like he's trying to delete the existence of the song by deleting chunks of the internet?" Suddenly a thought struck me. "Like he's trying to delete me. He threatened to sue Tortoiseshell this morning, unless they withdrew the single."

"They can't withdraw it, it's already licensed to MVC."

"Amy, I want you to do something for me. Something that's not very nice, and perhaps not very legal, but still..."

"Oh no, Kate, don't ask me to..."

"Does your mobile phone have a camera on it? Give it here."

Digging in my bag, I pulled out reams of paper. My tour itinerary, receipts from hotels, set lists, fanzines, load in and load out schedules, even the occasional "reserved for The Charms" notice from the doors of various dressing rooms. Yes, there it was, crumpled into the detritus of the past few months of my life. Marriage certificate, The Elvis Chapel, Thomas Edward Eboracum and Katharine Anne Griffiths Gordon. Date, signatures, and two witnesses. And under that, a receipt for the wedding suite at the Luxor Hotel, Las Vegas. Jesus fucking Christ, had it cost that much? He hadn't even blinked at the tab. And Thom was still driving around in a second hand Fiat?

Spreading the documents out over the desk, I snapped a photo, checked that the writing was legible, then handed it back to Amy. "Email that photo to Radioshack's management, and you tell them - if they don't call off the lawsuit against Tortoiseshell Records, that photo is going up on the front page of www.thecharms.com with a tip-off to the NME - got it?"

Amy's eyes practically popped out of her head. "Oh my god, when did you learn how to play hardball?"

"Look, I have learned one thing from Tristram fucking Thornaby-Gore, and that is, that all is fair in love and war. Bloody hell, I have nothing left to lose, and quite frankly I'm sick of the lies and the deceit."

I sat back, leaning into the massage of Maddie's facial, listening to Amy spell out the bare bones details of my threat in clinical tones, feeling like I had made the first decisive step of my life in ages. Though a step in what direction, I wasn't sure. I had been simply floating with the current of what other people wanted to do with my life for so long that I wasn't even sure which way land was any more.

"Well, as they say," droned Amy, reaching the end of her official statement. "Run that up the flagpole and see who salutes. Shit, what time is it? 2:30? Load-in was at what time yesterday? Around 3pm? Well, that was the last time any of us saw Beth. In about an hour or so, give the police a call, saying it's been 24 hours, she hasn't turned up, and you want to file a missing persons report... OK. Call me immediately if there are any developments."

By the time we reached Atlanta, a grim but determined mood had settled over the bus. Although none of us had dared articulate it, there was still a vague hope that Beth would turn up at the venue, but as the evening dragged on, the hopes were slowly but surely dashed.

"Third time's a Charm," joked Emma dryly, as we prepared for what was becoming a familiar ritual, of covering for Beth's absence with musical inventiveness, embellishing bits that should be polished vocals with extended jams, to mask the fact that we still could not play and sing many of the lead vocals at the same time. 

For an encore, we even attempted an acoustic version of _Codependent Love Song_ , me on acoustic guitar, badly attempting to duplicate Thom's ghostly vocals to an accompaniment of a sampled drumbeat, Emma's sweet but tortured vocal harmonies, and Maddie's noodlings on the Moog that Beth had abandoned. Although it sounded nothing like the slick, danceable version that had made the minidisc I'd left at Damien's house, the quirky melody and off-kilter harmonies seemed to shine in the stripped-down version.

Trying to take up space in a set left sparse by the removal of songs that only Beth seemed able to carry the lead vocals on, we wrote songs at soundcheck, fleshed them out in the few hours before the show, and slipped them into the set, hoping no one would notice. Old gems we hadn't played in years were shined up and brought back into the set, somehow all the fresher for their long shelving. By the end of the third show without her, we started to actually act as if this were a viable entity, instead of a last minute stand-in. 

Not that we didn't miss Beth. Without her bubbly and effusive personality, interviews were an exercise in futility. Since it seemed that the scandals tearing up the internet had not quite reached the print media yet, we held our tongues, afraid of giving them ammunition. 

 

 

The daily call back to the main office in New York had become almost a formality, though still, we held out hope that she would turn up alive and unharmed as we worked our way up the Eastern Seaboard back towards home. The only news was the steady stream of sales reports (picking up, thanks to either the gossip or the endless grind of touring) album reviews (mixed, but promising, with our former bastions in the pop press giving up on us, though a strange new trend showed 'serious' critics actually giving us a second look) and occasional offers of opening slots on other artists' tours. All of this, though once fascinating, seemed a bit anticlimactic now. In fact, in the light of our worries about Beth, which seemed to hover over us like a dark cloud, any news that wasn't about her, was a little disappointing.

"Tell them I don't know!" shouted Amy down the phone at her beleaguered secretary, Gail, as the bus sped between Washington DC and Baltimore. Whenever we got off this tour, I was going to make sure that Gail got a promotion and a big fat raise. "I don't know doesn't mean yes, it doesn't mean no, it means I just don't fucking know. We can't commit to anything until this Beth situation clears itself up... Look, it's another month until the tour starts. If they want to book someone else, tell them to go ahead and do it. If they want The Charms, they've got to wait and see... Har har, you've got to be joking. I think you can fax back an immediate _no_ on that one..." She grinned up at us over the top of the cell phone. "The Strolling Bones have asked if we're interested in an opening slot of their Autumn stadium tour of Europe. I know I don't even have to ask you about that..."

Emma exploded into laughter. "Ooh, Kate would like that, though. Imagine old, toothless Richard Keith chasing you around the stage. You like those old skanky junkie types, don't you?"

"Shut up," I shrieked, giggling as I tossed a pillow at her head. "We'll tour with the Strolling Bones if they get Brian James back from the dead to play with them."

"Well, how much were they going to pay?" protested Maddie.

"Not nearly enough," laughed Amy, waving her hand at us to quiet the noise. "Wait, you heard back? They were serious? You've got to be joking? How much? Oh, that's absurd, but I'll run it by the girls... Talk to you later." Folding up her cellphone, she snickered at some private joke. "Alright, I didn't want to tell you girls this, because I didn't want to get your hopes up, but apparently, they're serious. A few days ago, there were some tentative feelers from the management of Jezebel, asking how you'd feel about opening for her on an autumn promotional tour for the new album."

"Jezebel?" Emma sat up, blinking.

"Yeah, apparently in some recent interview, she has been raving about how good the new album is, claiming you as her spiritual descendants," Amy informed us with a wry smile.

Maddie's face twisted in a bittersweet expression. "Too bad Beth's not here to hear that..."

Emma looked away, her expression unreadable. Since the early days of the Charms, both she and Beth had been staunch fans of Jezebel, naming her as a prime influence in several interviews. I'd never been as huge a fan as my bandmates, to be honest, but I had to admit that the woman's influence had bestrode the pop world of the 80s and 90s like a Colossus. Jezebel was the genuine article, a certified superstar for nearly two decades. To tour with her... it was an honour on the same level as being booked as the support act for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

"You'd have thought if anything could get Beth back from the dead, it would be that..." she muttered, almost under her breath.

"I dunno, is Jezebel still any good these days? I was a bit disappointed with her last album, it was nowhere near as good as The Whore of God."

"Are you kidding? It was her best album since Bitch Goddess. It was full of straight-up bangers, going back to her disco roots."

"The question is not whether she's good or not, but..."

"How much money she offers us, har har har."

"No, whether we're going to keep slogging on doing this without Beth," I corrected. Maddie and Emma turned around and glared at me as if I'd said something dirty, then catching each others glances, instantly turned contrite.

"Beth'll turn up if we get offered a tour with Jezebel. Are you kidding?" shrugged Emma defensively. "She wanted to _be_ Jezebel when she was a teenager."

"Hang on," interrupted Amy, picking up her bleating cellphone. We carried on talking over the top of her as she answered it. "What, what?" shouted Amy over the noise of our mirth. "Guys, shut up! Wait, Gail, I'm going in the other room. Beth _what_?"

Our laughter tapered off as we realised what she had just said, three pairs of eyes focused on the door through which she had just disappeared, none of us daring to talk until she got back.

After a few, tense minutes, Amy returned to the room, her face unreadable. Whatever it was, it was bad.

"Amy, what is it?" I asked, my heart dropping into my stomach. "It's Beth isn't it?"

"Where is she?" demanded Emma. "Oh god, she's alright, isn't she?" Amy looked around the room, refusing to meet any of our eyes, her expression dazed, her eyes glassy, as if she were fighting tears. "Oh my god, she's had an overdose. She's in the hospital. She's dead." Left to its own devices, Emma's imagination ran to rampant paranoia.

"She's not dead," responded Amy slowly, rubbing her eyes. "It's not that bad. Then again, perhaps it's worse."

"Worse? What the fuck can be worse than her being dead of an overdose?"

"You might want to sit down..." suggested Amy. I knew what was coming, I'd felt it for days, it didn't even feel like a surprise when she announced the words. "I keep looking for an easy way to say this, but there isn't one. We have just received word from Beth's new self-proclaimed _press agent_..." The tone in which she pronounced this expressed her derision. "...that Beth has decided to leave the Charms, effective immediately."

 

 

"That fucking bitch!" raged Emma, standing up and pacing the room. Maddie put her head into her hands. "She can't do this to us. Not now. We've got a fucking tour to finish. How can she walk out now?"

"I don't know," cried Amy, the outright panic rising in her voice. We all turned around and stared at her. Amy had always been our bastion of strength and stability, source of a plan for every contingency. When Amy lost control of the situation, we were surely doomed. "They've been communicating via fax only, nobody knows where they are for sure, she can't get through at the number where the fax came from... Quite frankly, there isn't much we _can_ do at this point."

"But can't we have the number traced?" I protested, feeling completely dead and powerless inside, clutching at straws for any sort of idea.

"We've got the number, it just does us no good, cause it's unlisted," sighed Amy. "A 917 area code-it could be a fax or a cell line, literally anywhere within a 50 mile radius of New York City."

"Well that narrows it down. The police would have access to that information," I pointed out.

Suddenly Amy's eye flashed with inspiration. "We filed a missing persons report. It's a police matter now. If we turn over the fax to the police, they have access to unlisted phone numbers for criminal investigations, and... Kate, you're a genius!" Retreating to the other room, she started to punch the appropriate number in her cellphone.

"I can't just can't believe it - I just can't believe it," muttered Emma, pacing back and forth along the narrow strip of carpet down the centre of the bus.

"I can," I replied in a sick and world-weary voice. Emma stared daggers at me. "I'm sorry, I can't say it's that much of a surprise, after the things she's told me recently."

"No, you don't understand, you don't know her as well as we do... Jesus Christ, we've been best friends since we were 15 years old..." wailed Emma.

"I know her pretty damned well, Emma. I've lived with her, remember? And far more recently than you have," I exploded. "I mean, when was the last time you sat down and actually talked to her at any length? How the hell do you know what the hell has been going on in her head when all you've done is fight over ridiculous trivialities for the past two fucking years!"

"Kate, stop!" snapped Maddie. "She's gone, blaming each other is not going to bring her back."

"'I'm not blaming... Oh Christ..." With Beth gone, I was falling too easily into her role, squabbling with Emma. "You're right. It's not important."

"Oh, fuck..." swore Amy, coming back into the room, shaking her head.

"What?" we all ejaculated at once.

"Well, I got through to the police, they started to look it up, then suddenly told me that if we'd had a fax from her, she was no longer legally missing, and it was no longer a police matter. When I pressed the woman on it, saying that we had reason to believe that drugs were involved, she got very disinterested, saying that it was out of their jurisdiction, anyway. However..." Her face lit up in a triumphant smile, and I remembered her fascination with detective novels. She must be enjoying the sleuthing aspect of it, if nothing else. "She did slip up, in saying, quite clearly, _that part of Long Island is out of our jurisdiction_. So there you go - we at least know that Beth is somewhere on Long Island - out of New York City limits, but close enough to still have a 917 fax code."

"Well, it's a start," sighed Maddie.

Suddenly Emma poked her head up. "The North Shore."

"What?" queried Amy, turning around.

"The North Shore of Long Island. Her dad had a summer house out there, I went out there once for a barbecue or something..."

"Do you remember where it was?"

Emma shook her head. "It was ten years ago if it was a day. But..." She paused, as if weighing her words very carefully, her face twisting like Judas considering his betrayal. "It's a long shot, but you could always try calling her dad. She didn't get along very well with him, but it's his house. He would know if that were the fax number."

"As if I would have the home phone number of Donald Blair... I suppose I could always try calling their headquarters, but..." shrugged Amy, rolling her eyes. She'd always been a little intimidated by Beth's family background.

"I do," offered Emma in a little tiny voice. "I better call, though. Can I borrow your phone?" Amy nodded, handing over her cellphone as Emma produced a voluminous address book, that may once have been black before the name of every band Emma had idolised since the age of 15 had been scrawled across it in whiteout and ballpoint pen. "Hullo, Mrs. Sanchez? Is that you?" Mrs. Sanchez? Secretary? Housekeeper? "Are they in? It's Emma, Emma Noguchi, Elizabeth's friend... no, I work with her now. Yes... May I please speak to Mr. or Mrs. Blair? Yes, it's very important... Yes, I'll hold..." She pulled a strained face.

"Mrs. Blair, yes, hullo, this is Emma Noguchi. Yes, fine, thank you, how are you?" It was amazing how the normally blunt Emma could assume manners when she had to, but after years of dealing with Beth's family, she had probably learned the hard way. "I understand this is a little out of the blue, but do you, by any chance, have the phone or fax number of your summer home? No, um, no reason, really... just... Hullo, Mr. Blair." Her voice changed yet again, from pleasantly polite to downright unctuous. "Yes, the one on Long Island...." She put her hand to her head, massaging her chin gently, as if physically holding her tongue between her teeth. "We have reason to believe... we have reason to believe that Beth is there. Look, I really don't want to go into details, Mr. Blair."

Amy waved madly, trying to get her attention. "Tell him," she insisted. "Perhaps he can get through to her - I honestly believe that he's one of the few people in this world that Beth is actually afraid of!"

Emma shook her head, concentrating on her conversation, then sighed deeply. "Yes, Beth is probably in trouble... a great deal of trouble... we're trying to get to her _before_ the press does, so there _won't_ be a scandal!" she finally hissed. "...No, please. Hang on, hang on a minute..." she waved her hand wildly in the air, indicating she needed a pen, then started to scribble something in her address book. "Yes... Yes... That's it, that's the same number... Yes, well, I'm on tour right now... We're just coming out of DC, on our way to Baltimore... Well, Beth is _supposed_ to be with us... I don't know... I don't know... hang on a minute, I'll let you speak to our tour manager." She sighed deeply, then handed the phone over as if handing over a great cross to bear. "You better talk to him - I think he wants someone to go up there directly to speak to her."

"Hullo..." ventured Amy nervously. "Yes, sir, my name is Amy Cooper, I'm the manager of the Charms... yes, sir. Well, sir, we've had a Missing Persons report out on her since Wednesday... Yes, I'm afraid so... Oh, I see. I did not know that, sir... Probably this afternoon, depending on how quickly I can catch one of the commuter trains back to New York... Oh, that is not necessary, sir... I'm sure you're a very busy man... I will call you as soon as I know my ETA. Thank you very much, sir... Good bye."

She paused for a moment, folding up her cellphone. "Conceited, self-important, arrogant bastard," she finally spat. "Now I understand why Beth hates him so much. I'm sorry, Emma, to have to put you through that."

"It's OK, I'm used to it," Emma replied in a tiny voice, staring down at her boots. "I've been called worse in my day. If he's a prime specimen of upstanding White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant society, I'm glad I'm a _useless little Jap_ , or whatever the hell it was he just called me." Maddie and I both turned around to stare at Emma, barely believing how quietly she had swallowed the insults. Then again, there was so much of the history behind the early friendship of Emma and Beth that we'd simply never been party to. "Getting on his high horse that I'm not rushing off tour to go rescue his daughter... _His_ daughter! He's only an hour away, and I don't see him rushing away from his busy schedule to even call her and see if she's still there," Emma sputtered, recovering a bit of her customary spunk.

"Well, he _is_ sending his car to meet me at Penn Station, to drive me across to the Island," Amy added contritely, then changed her mind. "No, fuck that. He can't buy me off with cabfare. That bastard doesn't give a damn about anything except keeping his name out of the papers. He asked me if I thought Beth was into drugs, all matter of fact, like these snooty upper class bastards are about these things. When I told him I feared the worst, do you know what he said?" She put on what she fancied were posh airs, and imitated a bland, patrician New England upper class accent. _'"I suspected as much. Her mother had a little problem with pharmaceuticals, but I managed to divorce her before it could become too much of a drain on my financial resources.'_ Can you believe that? Bastard!"

"So you're going up to find her?" I ventured.

Amy nodded gravely. "It's that, or Mr. Blair threatened to send an intervention team to drag her forcibly off to the Betty Ford Centre." She paused, considering. "Not that I think that's such a bad idea, but I'd like the chance to assess the situation for myself, and try to resolve it peaceably."

"You're leaving us, then?" I whinged, the panic creeping into my voice. First Thom, then Damien, then Beth, then Amy? One by one, the supports of my life were being knocked out from under me, it seemed.

"You'll be fine," assured Amy, patting me on the shoulder. "I'll try to meet back up with you in New York. You've only got two weeks left of the tour, anyway. I'll leave copies of the itinerary with Chuck the driver and Joe in the crew... you'll be fine."

"It's your cell phone we'll miss, not you," teased Emma, recovering a bit of her usual chirpiness, then suddenly becoming serious again. "And tell Beth... tell Beth that we love her, we miss her, and..."

"And we want her back," completed Maddie. Emma shot her a dagger-like stare, then relented.

"And, yeah, we want her back," I added, in solidarity.

"Chuck..." called Amy, heading up towards the driver. "Slight detour... can you just drop me off at the Amtrak station before you head towards the theatre?" 

 

 

The ride from the station to the next theatre was probably the quietest twenty minutes of our entire career. None of us felt much inclined to even move, let alone talk. Our soundcheck was short and perfunctory, now that we knew that the stripped-down three-piece band was reality, not a stop-gap measure.

Emma and Maddie hung around the theatre, staring moodily at the place on the stage where Beth should have stood, but I felt anxious and unable to sit still. Almost subconsciously, I felt for my bag, reaching for the bottle of pills, then stopped myself. No, that wasn't going to solve anything. With Beth holed up somewhere, out of her mind on cocaine and god knows what else, even my _mothers little helpers_ , as Beth had disparagingly called them, no longer seemed so innocent.

Pushing the bottle back into the bag, I wandered outside and hailed a cab and asked for the Days Inn. It was the Days Inn, right? We always stayed at the same cheap motel chain. Or were they called Comfort Inns in the South? Motel Sixes? LaQuintas? I could never remember - Amy always kept track of that sort of thing. I hadn't taken care of myself in years, had I? I used to pride myself on my self reliance, back a million years ago, when I'd been a struggling student and part time musician. Now, without Damien or Amy to take care of me, I was simply falling to pieces.

The taxi driver looked me over once or twice in a way that made my skin crawl. Shivering slightly, I tried to pull my minidress down over my knees, cursing him under my breath silently as I stared resentfully back at the suspicious eyes in the mirror. I always forgot. My outlandish dress did not attract a second look in New York or London, but in the interminable backwaters of the States, I was lucky if people merely thought that I was a junkie. I could see it in his eyes - this guy was trying to figure out if he was going to ask for his fare in cash or perhaps a quick trick in the back of the cab.

After a brief battle of wills, he put the car into gear and turned his eyes back to the road. Digging through my bag, I looked for my wallet, then searched my pockets for some cash. A crumpled ten dollar bill? Was that it? Cash pocket money for every day living expenses while on tour always came from... Amy. I had been living too extravagantly for the past few months, letting Thom pick up the tab for the extras. A taxi? What was I thinking? I should have waited for the tourbus.

After cab fare and a tip, I had exactly $4.37 to buy dinner and get another cab back to the venue. Walking around the corner to a convenience store, I bought a soda and a frozen burrito, heating it in a decrepit microwave before walking back to the motel. After a brief argument with the clerk about credit cards, I managed to obtain my room key and collapsed on the bed. The craving to just take a pill and drift away was becoming less subconscious and more overpowering, not just an longing but an utterly unavoidable urge.

Climbing out of bed, I paced back and forth for a few minutes, then grabbed the bottle of pills out of my bag and stalked through to the bathroom to find a glass of water. No glasses? Not even a fucking paper cup? Turning the water on, I tried to scoop it up with my hands, but my hands were shaking too badly to get the water to my mouth without spilling it. Finally, in desperation, I bent over the sink, collapsing to my knees and twisting around to get my mouth under the faucet.

But as soon as I caught my reflection in the mirror, I stopped. Although I was still not entirely used to the dark-haired stranger in the mirror, this new look of desperation in my eyes terrified me.

"This isn't me," I announced to no one in particular, straightening up, putting the bottle down on the counter and pushing my hair out of my eyes. What the hell was I doing, down on my knees in the bathroom of some cheap motel? I might tell snotty pharmacists that I was not a common street junkie, but here I was, sure as hell acting like one. I had got up on such a high horse when it came to Beth's behaviour, but how was I behaving any differently?

Ignoring the shaking in my hands, I swept the bottle of pills up off the counter and walked over to the toilet. One by one, I shook the little pastel coloured pills into the toilet, then flushed them all down into the sewers, flushing the toilet again and again until they were all gone.

For about ten minutes, I felt really strong and powerful and in control of my life again. But as soon as I lay down on the bed, I started to shake again, rolling into a ball, hugging my knees and crying like a baby. What the hell had I done? They weren't illicit street drugs, they were legally prescribed medicine, and right now, they were just about the only thing standing between me and a complete and total nervous breakdown. Every other pillar of support in my life had eroded away, what the hell was I doing taking myself off the medication that was supposed to be taking their place?

No, I told myself, arguing with myself like I was arguing with a little girl. It wasn't medication - it was avoidance. The pills weren't holding me up, they were eroding what little self control I had left. I either had to get myself off them, or I would be like Beth, completely out of control and unable to stop, forcing other people to make the decision I wasn't able to make.

There was no more Damien to take care of me, no more Amy to clean up after my little messes. This was where I had to start taking care of myself.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Charms are pulled back from the brink, as their manager finally locates their missing singer, but Beth has big news after she finally agrees to check into rehab over her coke problem.
> 
> Kate is afflicted with ex-boyfriends, one of which she has to despatch, and the other she has to beg for help in repairing the broken mess of her life.

I don't know how we got through the rest of the tour. The closer we got to our home turf of New York, the larger and more enthusiastic the crowds became, but with the double absence of both Beth and Amy, we all felt a bit hollow, even a bit directionless. I had still never quite got used to either the dark-haired stranger in the mirror or my new role in the band. Musically, somehow we covered, and we tried not to let the performances lag, but it felt somehow empty.

It was two days before we heard any news from Amy. Maddie had phoned in from the office of a recalcitrant promoter who wanted to haggle over the price of a Beth-less Charms, but Gail had had other news for us.

"Are you in there by yourself?" Gail asked quietly.

"Can we have some privacy?" demanded Maddie, fixing the promoter with an evil glare. He backed off, muttering something about his long distance phone bill, but left the room. "It's just me and Kate now. Hang on... Emma?" she called. Emma trotted into the tiny office and closed the door behind her.

"Put this on the speakerphone and I'll put you through to Amy."

There were a few muffled clicks on the phone, then Amy's familiar voice. "Hey, girls, how are you holding up?"

"When are you coming back?" I moaned.

"And you didn't want me along in the first place," chuckled Amy.

"More importantly, how's Beth? Have you seen her?" demanded Emma.

"I have. You were right, Emma, she was out at the summer house. Wolfgang took off shortly after I arrived when he realised that I meant business. OK, I cheated - I offered him train fare back to New Orleans. I guess Beth was more of a handful than he had reckoned for." She paused guiltily. "Beth was a bit... difficult at first, but when I told her that her father had threatened to get involved. Well, she proved a bit more tractable, then. I convinced her to check into a private clinic in New York City. They want to send her to a more long-term residential treatment program. She's _thinking about it_."

"Well, I'm glad she's OK," replied Emma quietly.

"Yeah, tell her we're thinking about her," I added.

"Tell her we miss her," completed Maddie.

"Can we see her when we get back to New York next week?" Emma asked.

"I'll find out for you," she assured us. I heard the leather of her office chair creak as if she were shifting uncomfortably. "I also have good news and bad news for you. Which do you want first?"

"Good news, of course," supplied Maddie.

"Well, you'll be happy to know that the Jezebel tour has been confirmed. Three piece or four piece, she is insistent that she wants you. A nice fee, especially for an opening act - we'll have the money to travel in comfort on a nice bus..."

"I am so sick of tour busses..." I sighed.

"You'd prefer to go back to the Chevy Vans and U-Hauls like when we supported the Jesus Sugarpussy?" snarked Emma.

"I would like to ride on Jezebel's private airplane, to be honest."

"Why the fuck should we get an airplane?"

"Radioshack got an airplane."

"Emma! Beth! Shut up!" snapped Amy, out of years of habit.

"I'm not Beth," I growled back, standing up and getting ready to storm out of the room in a huff. Now that Beth was gone, was Emma going to start taking out her frustrations on me?

"Then stop acting like her," retorted Emma.

"I'm sorry, Kate." Amy paused, and I could hear the leather of her chair squeak again.

I got up and walked away, closing the office behind me, feeling a sick sinking feeling in my stomach. Then again, was that an ill omen, or was it simply another ill effect of the withdrawal from the tranquillisers? It was at times like these, when things started to get tense, that I wanted them the most. It wasn't even a physical addiction in the usual sense of the word - beyond the first few days of shakes and cold sweats, the ill feelings had passed. But whenever anything got difficult or stressful, emotionally, that was when I felt an almost tangible need for that cotton wool barrier, shielding me from everything.

I heard a movement behind me, and turned to see Maddie standing close to me. "Are you alright?"

I nodded reflexively, then stopped myself and shook my head. "It just never stops, does it? Just when I think we're going to get a stop and a breather, we're sent off on another 6-month multi-continent slog. It just never lets up, it's one thing after another. The pressure - it makes me wonder if the problem with Beth isn't so much the drugs, as the drugs are a way to escape the endless pressure."

"Kate, relax. You heard Amy. Beth is going to get treatment. She's going to be OK."

"And what about me?" My voice was very small.

Maddie put her arms around me, squeezing me gently around the shoulders. "I know the present seems pretty grim right now, but things are going to get better. For _all_ of us. I am feeling pretty hopeful about the future. Beth is going to get better - she's finally going to get the help she needs. And this tour... I don't know about you, but I am _so_ excited..."

"I just can't shake the feeling that something around the corner is going to go horribly wrong..."

Emma emerged from the office and fixed me with a wryly bemused expression. "Honestly, Kate, if you want to be such a cynic - well, think of this way. At this point, bloody hell, what else is there left to go wrong?"

"Bite your tongue! Don't jinx us!" I hurled after her.

"Come on, Kate. Think of it this way. Two more days and we can be back at home, sleeping in our own beds. How fantastic will that be?"

"It's only for two weeks before the next fucking tour," I pointed out, stopping myself before I could add _And it's not my own bed unless Damien is sleeping in it next to me_.

"Go to England and spend the time with Thom if that's what you want," she whispered with a sly wink. "I mean, after all, you know that Emma is going to be in Berlin with her boy."

"I..." I looked away darkly. We had been so concerned about Beth's disappearance that no one had even noticed Thom's. It had been hard enough to tell my bandmates that Thom and I were together - how was I going to tell them that we had split up?

Maddie eyed me cautiously. "Is Thom..." The look on my face must have told her everything. "Thom didn't go back to square things with the record company, did he?"

I took a deep breath, then sighed. "Thom and I split up." I was getting so sick of explaining this. Then again, who had I explained it to? I'd wasted so much argument and hyperbole trying to explain it to myself that I no longer had anything left to tell my friends.

Maddie's face fell. "Oh, Kate, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," I spat, but Maddie refused to let me go.

"No, come here. I know how much you wanted it to work..."

"I kicked him out. It wasn't a question of it not working. He _hit_ me."

Maddie drew a sharp intake of breath, and stared at me, speechless.

"My black eye, in Vegas - I thought it was an accident. But in New Orleans... he grabbed my throat, and he threw me down on the bed. I told him to leave. Immediately. And not come back."

"Oh my god, Kate, I am so, so, sorry."

"I don't need your pity."

"Kate, it's not pity. Do you remember, when Carlos and I were going through all our problems... You were there for me. You offered me a shoulder to cry on, a place to stay... You reminded me of what the important things in life really were." She paused, sensing my reticence. "All I'm saying is. Never lose sight of what's important."

 

 _How do I figure out what the hell is important when everything is pulling me a million different directions?_ I thought to myself, staring out the window of the tourbus at the lights of New Jersey sliding by. After our last gig of the tour, in Philadelphia, we'd decided to simply get back on the bus and drive the last two hours home. I was tired, I was hungry, I was filthy - I wanted to take a shower and crawl into bed. _What the hell is there left that's still important to me?_

Ian. I already knew that I was going to be spending the only two weeks off I would have in England, but it wasn't for Thom or for Damien or any of them. Before I had left for this tour, I had been so convinced that I would get custody of him, if I had to move heaven and earth and the British Immigration Service to accomplish it. How had I let myself get so distracted? Or was being thwarted in that end what had distracted me from taking care of the rest of my life?

Sitting in a haze of hangover and exhaustion, it all twisted together in my head until I was no longer sure what had happened. Soon, the buildings of Manhattan slowly rose up over the dirty industrial landscape of New Jersey. Once upon a time, as soon as I could see the brightly lit tips of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, shining like pristine crystalline spires, that had been the sign that I was home. Even now, even though I no longer really thought of it as home, it still seemed reassuring. Ian had been born here, after all - someday I would bring him here, and take a ride on the Central Park merry-go-round without having to borrow someone else's child. For a moment, I winced at the memory, then pushed it away. Jeremy was in the past; Jeremy was dead; the past was dead. I had to think about those of us that were still alive.

"Uptown or downtown?" asked the bus driver, stirring me out of my musings.

"Downtown," I supplied. "East village - Avenue B."

 

I had not even been home six hours, having pulled off my shoes and fallen into bed without even bothering to change, when I had to leave it again. Throwing the covers back, I opened my eyes and dragged myself over to the phone, realising that it was not going to stop ringing if I ignored it. What the hell was wrong with my ansaphone? Either it had gone on the fritz again or it was out of tape.

"Hullo?" I croaked.

"Come on, Kate, out of bed. You've got an hour to make it uptown to the hospital," chirped Amy cheerfully.

"What bloody time is it?"

"Nine a.m. Visiting time is at ten. Don't be late - Beth's been asking for you," she warned. "So don't even think of rolling over and going back to sleep."

"Can't we do this another day?" I sighed, rubbing my eyes.

"Beth wants to see all of you. Now, before Emma leaves for Germany and you, I assume, leave for London."

Putting the phone down, I rolled out of bed and poured myself into the shower. So much for rest and recuperation. At least it wasn't one of those de rigeur joyous early morning interviews. Then again, was a trip to a rehab centre really all that more pleasant?

Walking through the shower, I scrubbed the sweat of the previous night's performance from my skin, then pulled on my clothes. Padding downstairs, I knocked on Maddie's door and slipped into her kitchen.

"Hey, Maddie - have you called a cab yet?" I called out into the depths of her apartment.

"Yeah, it should be here in five minutes," answered a voice from the bedroom. "There's breakfast on the stove - help yourself."

"I'm not really hungry," I sighed, picking up a slice of toast, nibbling at it nervously then discarding it. "Where's Emma?"

"She'll be down in a minute..." The rest of her statement was interrupted by a flurry of honking from the curb outside. "Damn, that's the cab, isn't it? Why are they only ever early when you're running late?"

Five minutes later, the three of us were bundled into a cab headed uptown, Maddie and Emma still wolfing down the remains of their breakfasts. The building where we were dropped seemed innocent enough. We'd been expecting some sort of huge anonymous hospital, but the address turned out to be a brownstone with a brass plaque above the door. Small, private clinic? This must be costing Donald Blair a fucking packet.

Once inside the door, there was nothing about the place that belied the fact that this could be anything except a private doctor's office. Checking in at the reception desk, we sat in a bland waiting room, paging distractedly through old issues of the New Yorker until a nurse arrived and showed us into a small, sumptuously furnished room that looked like nothing so much as a psychoanalyst's office.

Beth perched on the edge of a charcoal grey sofa, her violet eyes downcast and her demeanour subdued. Dressed simply, in a pair of ratty old jeans and her favourite shapeless bottle green sweater, she seemed somehow washed out and faded. She looked exhausted, her face a bit gaunt, dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn't been sleeping or eating properly. I knew the look well, I'd seen it before on Jeremy Kane's face, when he had spent days at a time shovelling drugs into his maw. I'd seen it on my own face, recently enough, during our hellish tour.

Emma coughed uneasily, and Beth suddenly looked up, as if noticing our presence for the first time. 

"Hi," ventured Emma, moving forward, into the light.

Beth snorted derisively, then looked away. "I suppose you think I should be thanking you for saving my ass or something."

"No," shrugged Emma, sitting down on the threadbare couch opposite her. "Actually, I feel like a complete and total asshole for ratting you out, but..." Her voice trailed off as she bent over, trying to peer into Beth's downturned face. Despite her gruff attitude, I could see the love and pain shining in her eyes.

"But she was scared shitless that you were going to end up killing yourself or something," I supplied, leaning back against one of the wood panelled walls.

"Or something. Nice fucking hair, Kate." I was surprised she even noticed. Digging in her pocket, Beth produced a packet of cigarettes, removed one, and placed it in her mouth, then looked up at Emma. Despite her helplessness, she still seemed defiant. "Do you have a fucking lighter? I'm not allowed to have one in here."

Emma produced a book of matches and stuck one. "I thought you quit. Your voice."

"You try getting through a day without one in here," Beth shrugged, sucking deeply before adding. "We're not allowed any booze, drugs or television in here, so all we do is sit around all day drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes."

Emma smiled wryly, drawling "Just give me a doll, man. Just give me a doll!" she teased, quoting one of their favourite movies. We'd named our last album after _Valley of the Dolls_ ; we never thought that we would actually have to live it.

For a moment, Beth's eyes flared with anger, but hearing the humour in Emma's voice, her face split into a cracked smile, and she even allowed herself a slight giggle. "Shut _up_." The giggle turned into a laugh, then dissolved into a fit of dry, racking coughs. "God, I feel like shit. I can't wait to get the fuck out of this place..."

"But I thought..." stuttered Maddie, breaking her silence for the first time since entering the room.

"I'm being sent upstate," Beth explained hurriedly. "A small, private hospital up near Poughkeepsie for 28 days residential treatment, and then we'll see. My father..." She spat the word with incalculable hatred. "...offered to send me to Betty Ford... har har, _the_ Betty Ford clinic, for as long as I liked, no matter what the cost, so long as I didn't check in under my own name..." She laughed dryly. "Fat fucking chance..."

"But Beth," urged Emma with a fiendish grin. "Betty Ford - that's a brand name. You love brand names!"

For a moment, I thought Beth was going to reach out and punch Emma, but she leaned back and let out a deep, throaty belly laugh. "I thought about it, mind you, I thought about it," she grinned, crossing her legs and leaning forward again, the spark coming back into her eyes. When they were together like this, just friends, and not band mates, there was something endearing in the interplay; Beth the dreamer, given to flights of fancy, and the occasional pretension, and Emma, sarcastic and cynical, bringing her down to earth at every turn. It was such a shame that it seemed to turn nasty whenever the band was involved. Hours of unspoken conversation seemed to pass between them in a single glance, and they started to giggle again.

Maddie coughed again, shifting uncomfortably. "Don't be too long, though, eh? You'll miss the Jezebel tour this autumn."

Beth's face twisted in pain as she looked away, stabbing her cigarette out in the ashtray. "I don't know how to tell you this, Maddie, but..." She paused, tucking a strand of her hair behind one ear. "I'm not going on the Jezebel tour."

"But..." I protested. "Jezebel has always been one of your biggest idols. That's half the reason the Charms accepted the tour in the first place."

"What, you thought I couldn't resist?" observed Beth with an amused smile. "It would kick my butt and give me the impetus to get out of rehab more quickly?"

"Well..." hedged Maddie. "Erm... yes."

The defiance drained out of Beth quickly, as if she no longer had the energy to keep it up for long, and she slumped back in her chair, sullen and resigned. Leaning back, she stared up at the ceiling for a few, long minutes before responding. "I wasn't kidding about leaving the Charms."

"What?" exploded Emma. "You can't. You didn't mean that. I mean, you just fucking can't! That was the coke talking, we all knew that."

"No, it wasn't," sighed Beth, refusing to raise her voice over Emma's outburst, so that Emma had to shut up, sit down and listen to her. "I can't do this any more."

"You can't not do it, it's in your blood," insisted Emma.

Beth shook her head slowly. "Music is in my blood, that's true." She paused, carefully picking her words. "But I can't be in the Charms any more. It had nothing to do with recent events... this is something I was saying to Kate months ago, when I was shooting the film."

"So, what? You want to be a film star now or something?" snorted Emma.

"No, Emma, listen to me. This is not easy for me to say. When I walked out on the band, I thought..." She took a deep breath, drawing on her cigarette as if for strength. "I thought, well, _I'll show them_. I thought _this band is nothing without me_. But god, was I wrong. You were fine. It turned out that _I_ was nothing without the band. Do you know how scary that was for me? I mean, think about it. For, what? Ten years now, I think, my entire life has been nothing but the Charms. I've got to find out who the hell I am outside the Charms, because I'm afraid that there's nothing else left to me _except_ the Charms."

"That's absolute and complete bollocks, Beth," protested Emma. "This band has saved both of our lives more than once. I don't think I'd have made it out the other end of my teenage years alive without it."

Beth shook her head slowly. "Was that the band or was that the friendship?"

Emma stared defiantly at the floor, picking at the soles of her boots where the leather was coming away from the rubber. "Break up this band now, and there might not be a friendship," she warned, her voice a low growl.

"Don't be absurd. You don't need me anymore. You've fucking outgrown me. I knew that that night in New Orleans when I stormed offstage before the encore. I could hear there weren't any of my vocals in the monitors." We all looked away, guiltily and uneasily. I thought she'd been too coked-up to notice. "I think was half of why I was so angry," she explained. "That was when I finally realised that you didn't need me. I'd always been so arrogant, cause I thought I was indispensable. That night was the final wake-up call that I was not."

"But you are indispensable - to _me_ ," persisted Emma, her voice cracking under the emotion. At that moment, I realised that I didn't think I'd ever actually seen her cry, though she seemed on the verge of a complete breakdown. "You remember what horrible stage fright I used to get - I don't think I'd _ever_ have got on the stage at that first gig at CB's if you hadn't talked me into it."

Beth smiled wistfully at the memory. "Rob Sugarpussy talked you into it, dear. At that point, if he asked you to jump out a window, you'd have done it."

Emma's lip quivered, and for a moment, I thought she was going to burst into tears. "Beth, please..."

Shaking her head, Beth leaned over and rested her forehead against Emma's shoulder. "I can't do it, Emma. I can't. Another tour, and it won't be the end of the band - it'll be the end of me."

I looked over at Maddie, raising my eyebrows expectantly. "Perhaps we should give the two of them some time alone?"

Maddie nodded, then went over to Beth, put her arm around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head tenderly, like a little sister saying goodbye to a college-bound sibling. "We'll see you again," Maddie insisted. "It's not like you're being deported to Siberia or something. We still live in the same building. We'll see lots of each other when we get back from tour."

"I certainly hope so." She smiled weakly but honestly, then looked over at me. "If you don't give me a hug too, I'll never forgive you," she threatened.

"I didn't know that you wanted me to," I stuttered. We hadn't exactly been on the best of terms when we'd parted.

"Look, I'm sorry," she finally apologised, reaching over to squeeze my hand reassuringly. "If you and Thom are happy together..." The statement hit me like a knife in the guts, but I did not react. "I mean, I'm happy for you."

"Actually..." I took a deep breath. It hurt to say this, but I needed to, if I was ever going to make things any better between us. "You were right, Beth." She looked up sharply. "You can say _I told you so_ if you want, but... Thom and I have split up."

Beth ventured a dry smile. "I'd never say that." She took another drag of her cigarette. "I'm really sorry."

"You don't have to be," I started to shrug.

"Kate!" Beth caught my arm. "I know things haven't been great between us." She paused, waiting for me to protest or offer some platitude, but I remained silent. "I think... I think it's jealousy, really. But there's a time when you just have to let go of that jealousy, and admire someone for the things that you are jealous of, rather than hate them for them. Does that make sense?"

I shook my head slowly. "No, it makes sense, Beth, it's just... No, it doesn't make sense! My life is a mess, what the hell could you possibly have to be jealous of? You're the singer. You're the girl with the butterfly-impaling eyes. You're loved by..." I paused. Loved by millions. It was the old cliché.

"When was the last time you saw me go on a fucking date?" Beth blurted out. "No, and I don't mean Wolfie, and I don't mean some married ageing pop star."

"Beth, relationships aren't everything. They can be an addiction in and of themselves," I pointed out, smarting from the lesson I'd only recently learned.

"When was the last time you saw me take just one moment for myself? Just one moment for me. Not for the band, not for some stupid guy, not for the drugs, but for _me_."

"Beth..." I looked down at her, scratching her arms miserably, her lower lip quivering, then completely forgot about the lecture. "Come here." Leaning over, I wrapped my arms around her neck, and pulled her close, hugging her, patting her gently on the back of her head, smoothing her hair down the way I smoothed Ian's when he cried. "Take care of yourself, Beth. Do what you need to do," I whispered in her ear. "Cause when it comes down to it, I love you. I love you like the obnoxious, overbearing, and beautiful big sister - that's always been prettier, smarter, and better at everything than I am - that you've always been to me." I pulled away slightly, then leaned my forehead against hers so that we were eye to eye, our faces practically touching. "You take care of yourself, and you get better, cause if you don't, I am personally going to come find you and kill you, OK?"

Beth brightened, smiling, though I could see the tears standing in her eyes. "Yeah, right, even sick and in withdrawal, I could still kick your ass, little sis," she laughed. "Now get out of here. I'll see you soon."

 

 

Walking back into my own apartment, I was somewhat shocked to find that it no longer really felt like home. Then again, when I thought about it, I'd only really lived there for about 6 months. Tossing my bag down on the sofa, I contemplated the computer monitor staring at me blankly from my desk, remembering that somewhere, floating out there in cyberspace, was two months worth of accumulated e-mail.

 _No_ , I told myself firmly, walking through into the kitchen. I was only home for a day before I dashed off to London. There was only time for important things. Opening the fridge, I peeked inside, and discovered with some horror that I'd left a carton of milk sitting in the door. I quickly made a disgusted face, holding my nose against the smell and poured the contents down the drain before grabbing a can of Lysol and spraying the whole kitchen to banish the smell. _Right, back to the computer - e-mail is far less messy than this!_

Padding back out to the living room with a glass of water, I sat down at the computer and booted it up, logging onto the internet and settling in for the long haul while all my mail downloaded. 100 messages? Jesus Christ, had I forgotten to unsubscribe from the Charms mailing list digest before I left? There was no way I could have 100 messages from friends; they all knew I was on tour.

About ten minutes later, I started to slowly pick through the junk mail and forwarded jokes from Alex and endless _Treasure Trail_ digests until a familiar address right at the bottom of the inbox caught my eye. Thom? Blinking cautiously, I skipped ahead and clicked on it, though I'd been quite convinced that I'd never hear from him again.

 

> From: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
>  To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk
> 
> what the hell do you think you are doing? is this fucking blackmail or something? if you make an official announcement, damien will see it as well as ruth. do you just not care who you hurt in the process any more?

 

Without even stopping to think, I immediately fired back.

 

> From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
>  To: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk
> 
> Damien already knows. I told him, like you should have told Ruth. We've already fought about it, we're already history; I hope that you are happy. But I still love him, and I will still protect him from you, any way I know how. Drop the fucking lawsuit. 

 

I had forgotten how quickly Thom could respond back when he was angry.

 

> From: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk  
>  To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk
> 
> i have finally persuaded ruth to take me back, and if you fuck this up for me... i had to tell her the entire relationship was your idea of a publicity stunt. which i'm still not entirely convinced is a lie.
> 
> alright. i will drop the lawsuit. but in return, you must never *ever* so much as mention that fake fucking marriage ever again. or i will make life a living hell for you, and for damien, and for everyone you have ever cared about, so help me god.

 

> From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
>  To: Salamander@against.demon.co.uk
> 
> Thom, your threats mean nothing to me any more.  
>  Never contact me again.

 

I blocked his email address in case he responded yet again, then logged back into my inbox to finish dealing with my mail. There was an email from Tristram, reminding me that my weekend with Ian had been rescheduled for the following weekend, and I was expected in West London.

Jesus Christ. How was I going to get to London? And where was I going to stay? I hadn't actually thought about that. I'd grown so used to living with Damien that I hadn't even thought of anywhere else in London to stay. Perhaps Alex and Em... then again, after my break-up with Damien, I didn't even know if they were still speaking to me. No, that was absurd. Alex had been my friend before I even knew who Damien was.

Ploughing back into my inbox, I deleted another few Treasure Trail digests, then hit a familiar name. Em Evesham... good grief. This mail was recent; within the past few days.

> From: emeves@university.edu.uk  
>  To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk
> 
> Kate... 
> 
> I've just had a very, um, disturbing phone call from Damien. Please mail me or, better yet, call (though Alex has just informed me that you hate phones) when you get this message.
> 
> I'd like to talk.
> 
> Em

 

Well, she certainly knew about the art of understatement, didn't she? Wincing at the lecture I could already hear in her best concerned schoolteacher voice, I quickly moved to the next message. Oh god, they were ganging up on me, weren't they?

 

> From: AJSexmeal@slur.co.uk  
>  To: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk
> 
> Katie-Kate! Salut, mon ami! (amie? I've never been good with French gender endings...) Comment ca va? 
> 
> Ma femme has just told me that you and Hearsey Darling are being beastly to one another. Don't make me come over there and slap you both around. I'm not just a big sugar pussy under all this fringe, you know!
> 
> Call me if you want to chat. You know I'm here for you.
> 
> We miss you terribly
> 
> Alexxxxxxxxx!

 

Alex or Em? I had to write to one of them, but just couldn't face any accusations right now. Given the choice, Alex was probably safer, given his record, since those in glass houses are ill advised to throw stones. God knows what Damien had told them, but at least, if Alex confronted me on my infidelity, I could throw his back in his face.

 

> From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk  
>  To: AJSexmeal@slur.co.uk
> 
> _> Katie-Kate! Salut, mon ami! (amie? I've never been_  
>  _> good with French gender endings...) Comment ca va? _
> 
> Alex, you flirt, you know enough French to know that amie means *mistress* not female friend. ;-)
> 
> _> Ma femme has just told me that you and Hearsey_  
>  _> Darling are being beastly to one another._
> 
> God knows what Damien is telling Em. I really don't feel like discussing it right now.
> 
> _> Don't make me come over there and slap you both_  
>  _> around. I'm not just a big sugar pussy under all_  
>  _> this fringe, you know!_
> 
> Oh! Oh! Are you threatening me? Come on, let's have this out then, Alex. You, me, tickling competition to the death, whoever cries Uncle first has to buy the other a bottle of Moet. No, wait, that's nothing for you. Dom Perignon! Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!
> 
> _> Call me if you want to chat. You know I'm here_  
>  _> for you._
> 
> Actually, there is something you can do for me... I am coming back to the UK to see Ian next week. Does that posh flat of yours possibly have a spare bedroom, or even a comfy couch?
> 
> Yours hopefully,  
>  Kate

 

I hung around online for a few minutes, skimming mailing list digests for gossip about Thom and I, but soon enough, a reply dropped into my inbox. Funny to think that a year and a half ago, Alex had protested that he was a Luddite, and turned his nose up at computers, though now he seemed to check his e-mail compulsively, every few minutes. And to think that it was me who had originally urged him to buy that first laptop.

 

> To: AJSexmeal@slur.co.uk  
>  From: CharmGrl@destructive.co.uk
> 
> _> Alex, you flirt, you know enough French to know_  
>  _> that amie means *mistress* not female friend. ;-) _
> 
> <blushes furiously> You are, of course right. Freudian slip, no doubt, my dear.
> 
> _> God knows what Damien is telling Em. I really don't_  
>  _> feel like discussing it right now._
> 
> Alright, I won't press you on it, but you know Em *will*. Just warning you...
> 
> _> Actually, there is something you can do for me... I_  
>  _> am coming back to the UK to see Ian next week. Does_  
>  _> that posh flat of yours possibly have a spare_  
>  _> bedroom, or even a comfy couch?_
> 
> Sorry, only one bedroom. That's why we're looking at houses. Cheyne Walk, can you believe it? Knew that would appeal to your Boho sentiments...
> 
> But, as always, my sofa is your settee, as they say... Or is it the other way around? Let us know when you're coming, we'll send the welcome wagon round Heathrow!
> 
> Alexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate flies back to London to confront her Baby-father over custody rights, and deal with the mess of her past. But as she is staying with Alex and his fiancee, Em, can she keep echoes of The Past from swallowing their relationship, as well?

I invariably had the same problem on transatlantic flights - I always thought that I would be able to sleep through them, and land in London refreshed and alert, and I always ended up drinking all the way through the night and landing hung-over and miserable, stumbling through Heathrow in a daze. But as I collected my baggage and stumbled through the glass doors, the chipper and familiar face of Alex greeted me. 

"Katie-Kate!" he exclaimed, standing back and spreading his arms, then sweeping me up in a bear hug. "How was your flight?"

"Don't squeeze me," I protested into his chest, my stomach flip-flopping queasily. "I've got a horrible hangover."

"So do I, actually, but we've never let that stop us before, have we?" he chirped, taking my bag and draping it across one shoulder. Actually, he looked rather hung-over, his face puffy and unshaven, and he appeared to have put on a few pounds, but since he was beaming with joy, I suspected that they were the happy result of his newfound domesticity.

"You look good, though," I told him, smiling up at him as he extended a proprietary arm around my shoulders, guiding me through to the lift to the parking lots.

"I look fat," sighed Alex, catching his reflection in the endless glass of the corridor and sucking in his gut.

"You are such a girl."

"I am not!" He pulled a mock offended face to match his aghast tone of voice. "I think I'll grow a beard. Get a beer belly down to my knees... Yes! That is the life."

"Oh, Em will love that," I giggled, trying to picture it. In my mind, Alex would always be the gawky boy with the ridiculously long limbs. "You'll look like Ernest Hemingway."

"Yes! Yes!" insisted Alex. "Brilliant. I'll write a whole album in his style... The man was big. The sea was cold..."

"Dog bite man. Man bite dog," I added in a husky voice, giggling at his impression. No matter how miserable I felt, Alex was always able to make me laugh. The two of us giggled and squabbled like children, all the way back to London, finishing our fake Hemingway novel and moving on to the utter opposite, a fake Will Self novel. "Sodden with dreary white, no, no, no... alabasterine mist..."

"Precipitation," supplied Alex, flicking his hair out of his eyes and shifting gears without removing his cigarette from his mouth. "More syllables."

"The city punctured its opaque sleep... no, no, wait, reverie with the soft snoring of..."

"Susurration," added Alex. "He likes that word. I've heard him use it far too many times... Ah, here we are - home. Pray for a park."

"I didn't know you were a religious man, Alex."

"When it comes to parking spots, I'll pray to Jesus, Buddha, Jim Jones, Jarvis Shaffter, and... Yes! Yes! Look at that!" Alex shook his finger with religious fervour as he spotted a Vauxhall pulling away from the curb. "See? It works."

"You'll use up all your prayer points with god on parking spots, and then something really bad will happen to you, and you will have none left," I warned.

Alex turned to me with a look of mock horror. "Prayer points? Why, is that what they taught you as a Catholic? Little papist!"

"Well, you're the one with an indulgence."

We continued to giggle and spar playfully as we dashed down the narrow street towards his flat, then ran up the steps. I ran into the living room and collapsed on the familiar couch in a fit of hysterics but Alex was a step behind me, throwing himself into the couch beside me and reaching out to tickle me. I shrieked and fought back, slapping wildly at his hands, but his arms were too long, pinning me to the couch to tickle me harder.

"Alex, are you back, yet, I need you to..." Em's face appeared through the door into the kitchen, though her eyebrows knitted together in suspicion as she saw Alex and I tumbled together on the couch. "Oh, hullo, Kate."

I sat up quickly, pushing Alex off me and straightening my clothes, feeling strangely guilty, though the entire encounter had been completely innocent. "Hi, Em."

"I like what you've done to your hair," she ventured pleasantly, moving over towards me, though I noticed awkwardly that she placed her body strategically between Alex and I as she bent over to run her fingers through it. "It's very, um... different."

"It was a mistake," I sighed. "Fell asleep with a copper rinse in it, and it turned black..."

"No, it's auburn," insisted Em. "Don't you think it's pretty, Alex?" The question was a loaded one, her eyes turning towards him pointedly.

"What? Hmmm? Oh! You've changed your hair. I thought something was different about you. Yes, nice, I suppose." Alex shrugged as if noticing it for the first time. He _still_ forgot that I was a girl every now and then. _See, Em, you have nothing to worry about._

"Darling, the cat has gotten on top the refrigerator again, could you lift her down?" Em pleaded, then slipped into the spot on the couch as Alex got up to play the helpful house-husband. He was so domesticated when he was with Em - it never failed to surprise me. "So..." I knew what was coming - the Damien lecture. She leaned forward, placing her hand on my knee reassuringly. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine," I replied quickly, trying not to bristle.

"What happened?" she probed, leaning back against the edge of the couch and pushing a strand of my hair out my face.

"You've talked to Damien," I sighed defensively, shifting away from her and crossing my arms defensively. "I'm sure he's told you the whole sordid story."

"He's told me his side of the story, yes. But I'm interested to hear your side, Kate."

"There is no other side." Looking desperately around the room, I tried to think of a subject to change the conversation to.

"Did you..." She seemed to have a hard time even getting the words out of her mouth. "Did you sleep with Thom Eboracum?"

"I married Thom Eboracum," I pronounced with a finality that I hoped indicated that I did not wish to discuss the subject further.

Em sat bolt upright, her eyes compulsively darting towards the third finger of my left hand. "Married? How did _that_ happen?" Did she have to sound so shocked and horrified?

I was trying to formulate a response that encapsulated all the complex emotions swirling around in my head in under half an hour's conversation when Alex saved me by calling from the kitchen. "Damn cat! Em, your nasty little beast just scratched me and ran off under the table."

"Oh, Alex, you've got to be gentle with animals." Shooting me one of those apologetic glances, she climbed off the couch and trailed her fiancé back into the kitchen. "Come here, puss. There's a good kitty."

I took a minute to compose myself, then followed her, changing the subject forcibly before she had a chance to regain control of the conversation. "I'm going out to see Ian this afternoon. I'm so nervous."

"You'll be fine, Kate," Em assured me with a smile, turning back towards me, the psychotic looking kitten settling down in her arms. Motherhood would be so easy for her, wouldn't it? Even animals loved her.

"I'm always convinced that he won't remember me."

"Don't be ridiculous - you're his mother... Remember, I was with you at Glasto, his whole face lit up when he realised it was you."

"I'm going to ask Tristram to consider shared custody of Ian." I proposed boldly. "I think I owe it to him to ask him if he'll settle out of court first. I don't want to scar Ian any more by seeing his parents fight any more. Hopefully, Tristram will see sense and we won't have to go to court."

"Well, good luck." Em smiled sweetly and squeezed my hand reassuringly. "That's a good idea. Try to keep it out of the courts if you can."

 

The fear always stayed with me, in the pit of my heart, until I actually saw him again, felt his tiny arms around my neck. Too timid to face the ride out to Hammersmith alone, I managed to convince Alex to drive me, so at least I would have his constant chatter to distract me from my nervousness.

"Do you want me to go in with you?" he offered, flicking his hair out of his face to light another cigarette.

"No, I'll be fine. I've already wasted enough of your time just asking you to drive out here," I sighed. Although I actually really did want the reassurance of him at my side, I didn't want to give the Thornaby-Gore family anything else to use as ammunition against me.

"No worries. It's not like I have much else to do." He paused, flicking the car into reverse, though he made no move to disengage the hand brake. "I'll pick you up around 8, then? If you're up for it, I'll stand you a drink at the Grouch, if you like. You look like you'll need it."

With a grateful smile and a nod, I turned and picked my way up the pathway to the house, remembering how terrifying I'd found it the first time I'd seen it. Well, perhaps it was still terrifying, but at least it was a somewhat more familiar fear. Taking a deep breath, I raised the knocker and announced my presence.

A few minutes passed, and I was almost afraid that I'd come on the wrong weekend. No, I'd specifically requested a visit this weekend, as it was the only free time I would have for the next few months, and Tristram had agreed with surprisingly little fuss. All of a sudden, the door swung open with an ominous creak, revealing a rather dishevelled Tristram holding a partially clad but unbelievably cross Ian.

"I'm sorry, am I early?" I stuttered, rather surprised to see him.

"No," he shook his head, struggling to contain his son, who had caught sight of me. "Someone is just not very happy after his bath..." Finally, he gave up and handed Ian over to me. 

A few moments of rocking and cooing noises, and I managed to calm him. Nothing in the world could bother me when he was in my arms, and the strange sense of tranquillity seemed to reassure Ian.

"Can I offer you a cup of tea?"

"Erm... yes, please." I could barely believe what I was hearing. Who was this strange, friendly, polite person that had taken over my former nemesis's body?

The afternoon was astonishingly pleasant, the two of us putting aside whatever petty arguments had torn us asunder in order to present an image of almost creditable family unity, laughing and joking and playing with the baby. By the time 8 o'clock rolled around, I almost did not want to go home, even when I knew it was getting near Ian's bedtime. Though I could help Tristram get him ready, a curtain descended between us as I remembered that I would not be able to watch him sleep.

"It would probably be alright if he just stayed up a little bit later," Tristram speculated.

"No, better to keep him to the schedule that he's used to."

"Well, you can put him to bed if you like," Tristram offered, leading the way up the carved mahogany staircase.

"Thank you again for letting me see him on such short notice," I noted politely as I followed him into the large, dimly lit room.

Watching me carefully, Tristram shrugged, a delicate gesture, his tiny birdlike shoulders barely rustling the fabric of his shirt. "I understand that you're going to be on tour for a really long time. I'm glad, for Ian's sake, that you made the effort to see him before you left."

"Actually," I confessed with a deep breath, laying Ian in the crib. "I came to see you as much as I came to see him."

Tristram's face clouded with worry and confusion. "Oh?" Turning around, he stared at our son in an effort to avoid my eyes. "I can't believe it - he looks like he's actually gone off to sleep. Damn, he never behaves this well when it's just me here."

"Tris, we need to talk," I insisted, a little more firmly, but trying to keep my voice low, so as not to wake Ian. "I wanted to tell you myself first before you heard from my lawyers."

He sighed deeply, then walked over to the window, leaning against the sash and staring out into the rain. "Kate, I read the papers. I know what is happening with your... your _marriage_." He said the word pointedly.

"What do you know about my marriage?" I shuddered. Was it already such common knowledge that even Tristram knew about it? That rather blunted the teeth of my threats to Thom.

"I know your marriage to Damien was called off. That your relationship is over. I read it in the papers."

"For a start," I hissed, fighting to keep my voice down. "You should know better than to believe anything that you read in the tabloids. For a second, I don't see how my personal life is any of your business."

"Bloody hell," swore Tristram, narrowing his eyebrows and bracing for the argument. "I wasn't saying..." He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. "I'm sorry. You're right."

"This isn't about my relationship. This is about Ian. I'm..." I gulped nervously, then plunged into it. "I'm filing a motion to petition for joint custody of Ian."

" _What_?" exploded Tristram, then rapidly composed himself, glancing down at his sleeping son. "Why?"

"Tristram, I'm his mother. Whatever it is that you think of me, or my morality, or whatever, he's my flesh and blood. Letting me see him only once every two months, for a couple of hours at a time? That's just completely unfair - inhuman is what it is! I still don't know what it is that you think you're punishing me for, but I think I've been punished enough."

"I'm not punishing you! Get that through your head," whined Tristram.

"Do you really think that this is the best thing for Ian?" I asked point blank. Standing at the head of the crib, I must have looked like a riled-up lioness, as Tristram backed away, scratching his chin.

"No," he finally confessed, sinking down into a chair and putting his face into his hands, rubbing his eyes. "I don't. I don't think that it's best for either of you." Looking up, he fixed me with his azure stare. "Look, if you want to come here and see him more often, I'd be OK with that. It's a long drive up from Cornwall, but I don't know. Maybe you could even come down to Bude and visit us at home."

I bit my tongue, looking down at Ian to remind myself why I was doing this. "Tris, would you be willing to put that in writing?" I replied quietly. "Like, in a notarised letter to my lawyers."

"Look, I've let you see him whenever you asked! Why do you have to drag the courts, and lawyers and everything else into this? Don't you think he's been through enough?"

"You're the one who dragged the courts into this!" I snapped, then caught myself, remembering the child between us. "I want it in writing, that's all."

"Can't we can work this out ourselves, Kate? We can come to a cordial agreement, just between the two of us. Whatever I might think of your lifestyle, I do recognise the fact that you are devoted to Ian, and you have made every effort above and beyond your legal obligations..."

"Legal obligations?" I practically spat. "He's my _son_."

"I'm willing... I'm trying to compromise. I don't want us to be enemies any more. For his sake. Just try to be reasonable."

"That's exactly what I'm trying to get you to be." I bent my head, trying not to lose my temper, lowering my voice instead of raising it. "Tristram, you and your lawyers said a lot of terrible, not to mention untrue things about me in a very public forum. I'm not seeking vindication or revenge. I just want my rights to be clear. You know that what I am asking for is the right thing for Ian. I don't want this to be something that's a favour that you're going to give me when I behave in a manner you deem acceptable, and that you think you can take away when you don't approve of me."

"Now look..." sputtered Tristram. "You make this sound like I'd base Ian's entire future on simple _whims_ of mine."

"No, you look, Tristram," I insisted. "I mean, that is _exactly_ how you acted when we were dating..."

" _Dating_? Now that's a pretty loose interpretation of the term," he sniped.

"Exactly my point! One day you thought I was a reasonably attractive human being, the next you thought I was the Whore of Babylon, the next you wanted to sleep with me again. I don't want Ian to have to face that sort of indecision when it comes to his mother. A child needs to know that he can count on his mum to be there on a regular basis, all the time, permanently, not just when you think that I'm behaving."

Tristram was almost speechless, opening and closing his mouth like a dying fish.

"Now, either you can dig in your heels and turn it into another huge, long, drawn out court battle, or else you can co-operate, and we can do this in the least painful manner possible. Without the courts."

"You can't do that; that's blackmail," snorted Tristram. "I mean, what kind of a case can you possibly have against me?"

"Are you willing to take that risk?" Who was this bitch, who had started standing up for herself and making ultimatums to the men who had made my life hell for the past year?

"You're gambling with our son's life! That's what you're doing. You know, all I have to do is tell the court appointed social worker back in New York that you're using drugs and your visitation rights will be revoked..."

"Now who's playing games?" I demanded. "And if you're going to play games, you better make sure that they are games that you can win. What if I turned around and pointed the finger back at you? If we took a drugs test at this moment, I'd pass. Would you?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I've not touched anything stronger than a bit of spliff in months," Tristram pooh-poohed.

"Do you have any idea how puritanical the American legal system is when it comes to drugs?"

"Pot's not a drug," he laughed.

"Do you want to tell that to a judge? An American judge?" I suggested.

"You wouldn't! That's hardly fair!" snorted Tristram, beginning to realise that for once, I had the moral, and possibly even the legal high ground.

"Neither was bringing up Jeremy's heroin habit during the trial," I retorted.

He paused, silent, as if thinking about what I had said, then finally turned around, whining "Look, Kate, why are you doing this?"

"I just want what's right. And I just wanted to offer you the chance to do it quietly and peacefully, and not hurt Ian any more."

"You haven't answered my question!"

"I don't have to answer any more questions from you! I'm his mother, that's answer enough in and of itself."

"What kind of mother do you think that you're going to be, Kate? I mean, you're about to disappear off on tour for six months," he pointed out.

"And what about you? You're releasing an album in a few months. Are you telling me that you are not going to tour that album?"

"Of course we are. But that's different," he defended sullenly.

"How is it different?"

"Because when I tour, I don't go off and take Class A pharmaceuticals and hang around with coke addicts and junkies and go off to copulate with complete strangers."

"Oh!" I exploded, then rapidly regained composure as Ian stirred in my lap. "That's always what this comes down to, isn't it? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Tris. The hypocrisy of it all, coming from you! Your entire court case was based on the idea that I was not fit for motherhood because I'd conceived the child by shagging some distant acquaintance while off my face on drugs. Well, bloody hell, Tris, isn't that exactly what you were doing, too?"

He opened his mouth to snap back a reply, then his face fell, his brow furrowed as if conceding defeat. But our raised voices must have woken Ian, as he woke, and started to fuss. I reached out and picked him up, cradling him in my arms, then sat down and started to gently rock him back to sleep.

"I have never denied that I made a mistake getting involved with you," Tristram finally replied, very quietly. "I know that what I did was wrong." He turned around, glaring out the window. "But at least I have the guts to admit that I made a mistake, and I'm doing my best to live with that mistake."

"Why do you keep saying that? Ian is not a mistake." Instinctively, I pulled him closer, cradling him against my chest. "Ian... Ian has saved my life, you know. I don't look on Ian as a mistake, I look on Ian as a true gift."

"If that is true, well, where the hell have you been for the past six months of his life?" Tristram shot back accusingly.

"I haven't been here, because you went to the courts to get me legally prohibited from seeing him!" I pointed out. "You almost had me believing that perhaps I wasn't fit to be a mother, and do you know what? Something like that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy after a while. But I don't have to listen to it. I don't have to become what other people tell me that I am. Other people telling me that I am a bad mother does not _make_ me a bad mother. Other people telling me that I am going to cheat on my boyfriends doesn't mean that I have to..."

"Oh, so that's what this is about? You fuck up the rest of your life, and you drive away all of the men that ever cared about you, and so to make up for it, you think you can just waltz back into our lives, and steal my family, my son, from me?"

" _Your_ son? Tristram, he is _our_ son. How can I steal something that is already mine? You've got it so wrong - I'm not trying to compensate for my relationships with men by coming home to wreck your - _our_ \- family. I know - I have learned that I will never be able have a proper relationship with a man until I have reconciled myself to my family - or my lack of one. Right now, Ian _is_ my only family. You can't take that away from me, Tris."

"I think you should leave now," Tristram stated coldly, finally walking towards the bed, leaning over me and snatching Ian from my lap.

"Tristram, just think about it," I begged, wondering if I'd pushed too far.

Tristram said nothing, walking over to the cot and placing his son in it. A car horn sounded in the driveway, and I suddenly remembered Alex, and his promise of a drink. Sighing deeply, I took one last longing look at my son, then dashed out the door.

"How was it?" Alex asked, noting my pensive expression.

"Actually, it was OK. It was difficult, but I talked to Tristram about custody. It was tough, but I'm glad I did. I had a lot that I had to get out," I responded, raising my head and brightening.

"Then you won't need that drink?" Alex teased.

"Don't you even think that!"

We circled through Soho and Covent Garden a few times, but in the end, it was obvious that there was no way we were going to find a park on the street on a Saturday night, so Alex ended up springing for a garage with a sigh that obviously pained his parsimonious soul.

"Oh god, it's crowded already," I sighed, watching the crowd milling in through the door ahead of us.

"It's worse on Fridays after work," shrugged Alex. "I can always get served, no matter how crowded it gets, though. You know that." As if in confirmation of his words, he pushed through to the bar, leaving me by myself at the edge of the crowd.

Suddenly a wave of unease swept over me, as I realised that I had not set foot in the place since the heady weeks of the summer when Damien and I had practically lived here. All around me were people I vaguely recognised, though for some reason, they did not choose to acknowledge me. They must be Damien's friends, deliberately snubbing me. No, it was the hair, I tried to tell myself, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the bar. Most of these people knew me solely as some golden-haired creature on Damien's arm.

"Here you go," chirped Alex behind me, and I turned around to see him grinning at me, bearing two enormous gin and tonics. "Fancy a game of snooker?" he suggested, gesturing with his head toward the familiar doorway to the snooker room.

My face and my mood fell, remembering Damien shagging me on the baize during the world cup. My breath caught in my throat, and I felt like I couldn't swallow. "No, no thank you."

"But..." Alex started to protest, then noticed the anguished look I shot him. Come to think of it, Alex had caught us at it. "Oh. Right, let's go upstairs, then."

I could tell he was itching to be down in the snooker room with his pals, but he was an utter sweetheart, and managed to find us a quiet table in a little used lounge upstairs. "So..." I ventured, unsure of how to broach the topic we had danced uneasily around all afternoon. "Have you seen Damien lately?"

Alex squirmed like a schoolboy called into the principal's office. "Erm... actually, yes, I have."

"How... how is he?" I asked worriedly, almost afraid of the answer. What was it I wanted to hear? Damien was a man of emotional iron; he didn't allow anything to get to him. It seemed unlikely that he was lying around moping and waiting for me to beg him to come back.

"He's... he's Damien," Alex shrugged non-committaly, refusing to meet my gaze.

"Meaning..."

"Oh, you know Dame... working too hard, partying too hard, as usual, drinking too much, smoking too much, sh..." He cut himself off before the rest of the word could slip through his lips.

"Shagging too much? Is that what you were going to say?" I probed.

"Weellll..." Alex folded himself into his seat, compacting his body into half its normal size.

"Don't even pretend that you can lie to me," I laughed, trying to cover our discomfort with humour. "Is he seeing someone?"

"I don't know that _seeing someone_ is the correct term..." Alex squirmed.

"What are you saying?" I demanded, my face flushing and my ears growing hot.

"Kate, you don't want to know this..." Alex shook his head slowly in protest.

"I do!" I snapped. If I didn't care about him, why was my heart beating so fast? "If he is celebrating our breakup by running around with a different girl every night, then I want to know." Alex looked at his feet and took a deep draft of his drink, but did not reply. "Is that what he's doing?"

"Basically, yes."

_Dammit_... slumping back in my chair, I sipped moodily at my drink, stabbing ferociously the lime. I'd been expecting a rival; someone he could throw in my face to make me jealous. I could have handled a rival, could have plotted a line of attack and defence. But this wasn't Damien in revenge mode, this was Damien in simple, self indulgent dissolution. 

Why the hell had I come here, to this club of all places? Everywhere I turned, the very walls and floor seemed to hold memories of Damien.

"Are you alright?" Alex worried, leaning forward, his huge brown eyes searching mine.

"Actually, all of a sudden, I don't particularly feel like being here any more," I confessed, putting the drink I'd barely made a dent in back down on the table.

"Want to go somewhere else, then? Come on, let's go to Freud's, then." I nodded, and followed him without protesting, even letting him wrap his long arm around my shoulders and squeeze me familiarly. A tiny pinprick of sexuality passed between us, but it was no more than a ghost, and faded as quickly as it had come. For a moment, I contemplated threading my arm though his for support, but no, he'd always hated the gesture. But much to my surprise, as soon as we were out on the street, he offered his elbow unbidden, and I took it gratefully. "You've changed," I noted, realising that it this was the first time I'd been alone with him for any prolonged period of time since our breakup.

"Have I?" Alex squinted against the shimmer of the street lamps in the light mist.

"Yes. You're somehow... softer now."

"Softer? I should bop you on the nose for that," he threatened with a laugh.

"No, it's nice. It suits you. It's Em; she's good for you."

He grinned, his classically handsome face splitting down the middle in that appealingly childish gesture. "Yeah, she is. I wish... I..." his voice faded away as we rounded the corner and pulled up short outside another of his favourite drinking holes. The night seemed prematurely chilly, our breath leaving little trails in the autumn air. "God, I really wished that you and Damien could have found the same sort of happiness."

I turned away, afraid of letting him see me cry. Every step of this familiar pub crawl through Soho screamed to me of Damien, I didn't need Alex to remind me.

"Kate..." Before I could stop myself, I was leaning against Alex's chest, shaking with tears, not even protesting as he wrapped his arms around me, smoothing my hair down and laying his cheek against the top of my head. "Kate, Kate," he repeated, reciting my name like a mantra, no longer even trying to stop me from crying. I heard people come out of the bar behind us, but he didn't even glance at them. "You still love him, don't you?"

"No!" I insisted doggedly, through the tears.

"Don't even pretend that _you_ can lie to _me_ ," he repeated, in an intentional echo of the words I'd only just dropped a few minutes previously.

"Alright, I do. I suppose I'll probably love him till the day that I die," I confessed. It was the first time I'd said it out loud, and it sounded jagged and discordant, an unpleasant little fact of nature, rather than a declaration of passion.

"Come on, come on," soothed Alex, pulling back and taking me by the shoulders, peering down at me with brotherly concern. "Let's get you a drink, you'll feel better." I nodded weakly, feeling the double effects of the emotional strain of the past few weeks and the jet lag finally catching up with me, and slowly followed him down the rickety steps into the bar. We had only got a few feet when suddenly Alex froze. Suddenly, his chest was in front of me like a wall, blocking my view of the interior of the bar. "Let's not go in here. It's too crowded. Let's go somewhere we can sit down..."

"What?" I stuttered, too dazed to protest as he pushed me rather too quickly out the door and up the steps. It wasn't until we were out on the street, and he took my hand, pulling me in the opposite direction that it dawned on me. "He was in there wasn't he?" I demanded.

"Kate, no. Don't..."

"Was he in there, Alex?" My teeth were gritted, my heart pounding, but he would not let go of my hand. "Alex!"

"Don't do this to yourself, Kate..." I broke away from him, but he seized me around the waist, refusing to let me walk back down the street. People were starting to stare all around us.

"He was in there, wasn't he? Was he with a girl? He was with a girl. I know it."

"Kate, it's not worth it!" snarled Alex, but I pushed him off me, breaking into a run as I dashed back towards the bar.

Not worth it? Apart from Ian, my relationship with Damien was the only other thing I'd ever truly cared about in my entire life. Pushing my way down into the crowded bar, I stood in the entrance for a few seconds, scanning the crowd, though I couldn't see Damien anywhere. Suddenly, I caught a familiar face, at a table towards the back - an American art collector, his arm draped around a docile and bored looking fashion model. Next to her, another insanely beautiful but equally vacuous looking blonde giggled inanely, her eyes focused on a man who was attempting to nibble on her neck. His back was to me, but I would know that close cropped head of dark hair, that streak of premature grey above his left ear anywhere.

Suppressing a slight cry of anguish, I wavered in the door, unsure whether to simply turn and run away, or walk over and wrench the two of them apart and deliver a resounding slap to his cheating face... But what right had I to do that? I was the one who had cheated, I was the one who had screwed this thing up.

"Are you satisfied? Can we go now?" asked Alex's voice quietly behind me.

I nodded slowly, no longer even feeling the urge to fight him, a completely broken and downcast woman. Feeling sick and empty and bruised inside, I simply followed Alex home, found the sofa and collapsed in a weary pile. 

Alex shuffled into the kitchen and pressed the button on the blinking ansaphone. _"Hi, sweetie, it's Em. Sorry I couldn't meet you guys for a drink, I'm stuck late at the studio. The bloody Face changed the deadline for the Phatface Skinny article, so I've got to finish printing the contact sheets tonight."_

"I can't believe it," I kept repeating to myself, curling myself into a ball, wrapped around the glass of brandy that Alex found me as he returned from the kitchen.

"Well, come on, Kate," sighed Alex, collapsing next to me, then patting me familiarly on the ankle. "You left him, remember?" It was an affectionate gesture, fraught with whispers of cosy domesticity and old married couples, but at the same time, a tiny shiver of sexual electricity shot up my spine. Even with his slight beer belly and the dark circles under his eyes, he was still beautiful. 

"Don't remind me," I muttered, pulling away self consciously, trying to push the memories of our of brief relationship out of my head.

Alex was beginning to grow irritated, but I was too maudlin to notice. "Well, what do you expect, Kate? Honestly. You can't dump a man, run off with someone else, and then be upset if he starts dating someone new."

"Alex, don't bully me. I can't stand it when you bully me."

"Kate, someone needs to bully you. Perhaps Damien should have bullied you more. It's the only thing you ever seem to listen to!" snorted Alex.

"Just shut up," I snapped.

"No, Kate, I will not shut up. You're acting like... like a spoiled, out of control teenager right now."

"I don't want to hear it!"

"I don't know how Damien fucking dealt with you!" snarled Alex finally, standing and throwing up his hands, picking up a blanket that was draped over the back of a chair and throwing it over me.

I started to snarl, _'Damien dealt with nothing...!'_ but the name caught in my throat. Why did Alex and I always have this effect on each other? He didn't fight like this with anyone else. It was the way I used to fight with my brother, the hits hurt worse with because every statement had so much history behind it.

But no; Alex was right, I was acting like a spoiled brat. The anger drained out of me, replaced by maudlin self pity. "Please, just leave me alone." Shaking his head, Alex turned around and started to walk away. At that moment, I realised that the last thing I wanted was to be alone. "Wait, Alex... don't go."

He paused and turned around, his eyebrows raised in the familiar gesture.

"You're right." I stared at my brandy, then put it back on the coffee table untouched. "Everyone keeps asking me _Why?_ And do you know what? I honestly don't even know why."

Alex stared at me, as if perplexed. "I thought..." His words trailed off. "Kate, just go to sleep. I don't think you're in an emotional state to talk about this right now."

I turned away sharply, bristling with annoyance. There was a reason that we had broken up, I remembered bitterly - he always had a hard time talking about emotions, especially other people's. "Never mind," I snorted, rolling over and pulling the blanket over my head.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Kate is staying in London with Alex and Em, gossip starts to eat into her relationships with her two best friends. But when Alex talks her into confronting her ex lover, Damien, things do not go entirely according to plan.

I woke slowly, drifting through the many layers of sleep and jet lag, to the realisation that someone was talking softly on the phone in the room next door, trying very hard not to raise her voice, though she was obviously incensed.

"Look, I don't care what your friend thought she saw last night, Alex was out for most of the afternoon with a friend of ours." She paused. "No, Yvonne, I appreciate your concern, but..." I cringed, and wondered if the Yvonne she was talking to was Gary Goode's wife. "Kate has just dyed her hair auburn - it probably looked brown under a street lamp." I could hear the defensiveness creep into her voice. "Yes, _that_ Kate..."

There was the flare of a cigarette being lit, and I pricked up my ears. Although I had been trying very hard not to eavesdrop, it was impossible now my name had been mentioned.

"Don't say it, Yvonne, it's not what you think... We've become very good friends. She's been staying here because she's in town visiting her son." Another long pause. "She and Damien have had a very difficult breakup. Alex and I are both worried about her." Her voice was becoming tight, even tense, but she laughed it off. "Oh, Yvonne, darling, how many times have you heard that Gary was kissing some gorgeous young thing outside the Groucho? Do you believe it every time you hear it?... I believe it less because it is Kate. I trust Alex and I trust her, I'm sure nothing happened. Goodbye!"

Closing my eyes, I screwed myself up into a tiny ball, hating myself and hating every nasty rumour that had ever been told about me and Alex. I hadn't cared when it was Alex and Mimi, but, right now, the idea of anything - even a maliciously untrue rumour - hurting Em made me feel like throwing up. After a few torturous minutes of waiting in bed, to try and hide the fact that I had been eavesdropping, I threw back the covers and padded through into the kitchen.

"Morning," I croaked, trying to sound chipper, but failing miserable.

"Oh, I didn't expect you up so early. Would you like some tea? Wait, I think Alex even bought some coffee because he said that's what you drink.," burbled Em, though my guilty conscience detected a wariness in her eyes now.

"Coffee would be lovely." I paused, unsure of how to phrase the next statement without giving away what I'd unintentionally heard, watching her uneasily as she dug in the fridge for the coffee beans. "Em..." I ventured cautiously.

"Yes, dear..." she tossed her hair back, her eyebrows raised in mild interest as she closed the fridge door with her foot and padded across the kitchen to deposit the beans on the counter.

"About last night..."

Em turned around quizzically, her eyebrows knitted together as the realisation dawned what I was about to address. "Kate, did you overhear my phone conversation by any chance?"

"I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry... I wasn't eavesdropping, I swear. It rather woke me up..."

Em shook her head resignedly, leaning back against the counter. "I love Yvonne dearly, but she is a terrible gossip. I tend to absolutely discount _anything_ that I hear from those model circles."

"Actually, Alex and I _were_ in Soho last night..." I began nervously.

"You don't have to tell me anything." She turned around, busying herself with the coffeemaker. Her voice was strained, as if she actively didn't want to hear anything. "You are one of Alex's best friends. I don't feel the need to pry or interfere with..."

"Em, it's partially true, and if there's anything I've learned over the past few years, it's that a lie mixed with truth is the lie most easily believed." She turned back to face me, her eyes wide and horrified. "We went to go to Freud's for a drink, but Damien was in there. Alex was comforting me outside on the pavement for quite some time. He was holding me, because I was so upset. We were just... erm, embracing, really. Like close friends do. But I suppose anyone walking by might have mistaken it for a kiss..."

"Good fucking lord..." shrieked Em, her voice high and piercing with relief or tension, I couldn't tell. "Is that it? Just a little hug..."

"Em, I'm sorry... I didn't mean..."

"Oh, you silly goose. You had me half scared to death over a friendly little hug?" she laughed, letting her breath out in a rush, then turned back to the coffeemaker, pouring the ground beans into the filter.

"Well," I stuttered, feeling a bit foolish. I simply hadn't wanted to leave anything not completely out in the open, after the nerve-wracking triangle of Damien and Thom. But her reaction had unnerved me. Suddenly, I felt intensely uncomfortable about the entire situation. What the hell was I thinking, staying in such close quarters in the house of my ex-boyfriend and his new fiancée? Without Damien as the balancing fourth leg to balance the unstable triangle, all it would take was one little malicious rumour to render the house a minefield.

"Milk and sugar?" she offered gaily, opening the fridge door.

"White, please, two spoons."

Em rolled her eyes. "Fucking limeys. I'll never get used to that black and white, TIF and MIF thing. Here, you better do it. An English spoon and an American spoon are not quite the same size."

"Thanks," I muttered, feeling the rich aroma of the coffee already bringing me back to some semblance of life. I took a sip, then settled uncomfortably at the table. "Em... you know, I don't think this is such a good idea after all."

"What?" She pulled out a chair, sitting down next to me.

"I don't think that I should stay with you any longer. I mean, you've been a very gracious and wonderful host, but..."

Em blinked at me for a moment before answering, slowly "Don't be ridiculous. You can stay here as long as you need to..."

"I don't think it's a good idea," I repeated quietly but firmly, blowing on my coffee before taking another sip.

"Kate, if this is about my reaction to that silly rumour, well... I'm sorry. I get a little jealous, but that is entirely my problem, not yours, please don't run off because I'm feeling a tad insecure," she apologised.

"It's not just that, Em. It's everything. Being in London, every street corner reminds me of what I lost. What I can't have. I can't do this. It's too painful," I half lied.

For quite some time, Em remained quiet, as if gathering her thoughts. "I'm not going to force you to stay somewhere that you feel uncomfortable, but where are you going to go? You can hardly go back to New York tonight..."

"Go back to New York?" I turned around to see Alex standing in the door to their bathroom, his chest bare and his wet hair sticking out at odd angles. Once upon a time, I'd have been torn apart at the sight, but now his presence just reminded me painfully of the foursome that Damien's absence had negated. 

As if relieved of the interruption, Em excused herself to shower, leaving Alex and I staring at each other over the remains of breakfast.

"You're not going back already, are you? So soon?" sighed Alex, sounding genuinely disappointed. "You'll miss my bachelor party..." So he really did think of me as one of the boys.

"I've got to go, Alex. I can't hang around London, just..." I didn't want to say j _ust waiting to see Damien_. "I can't just hang around."

Alex stared at me disbelievingly. "But what about Damien?"

"What _about_ Damien?" I snorted back.

"You're still obviously in love with Damien."

"Obviously?" I gasped. "Obvious to whom?" I demanded. He had touched a nerve.

"You said so yourself last night," Alex pointed out. 

"I said I loved him, and I always would. I didn't say that I was in love with him," I insisted viciously. "You of all people should know that there's a difference."

"I know that very well. And so do you, cause you're the one who taught me the difference," he snapped back, his eyes flashing. 

This wouldn't be hurting so much if it wasn't true. "So what do I do about it, Alex?" I sighed, turning to him, my eyes brimming with tears.

"I don't know," he shrugged, pulling out a cigarette. "I just wanted you to admit it. I've never had any answers to the problems of your love life, even when I was a part of it." 

I winced. That shouldn't hurt, either. But no, the only person who had ever successfully negotiated a path through the tangled briar wood of my emotions was Damien.

Blowing his fringe out of the way, he lit his cigarette carefully, then held out his hand to take mine, realising that he had said something tactless. "Come on, let me make it up to you. I'll take you to The National Gallery," he offered. "I know that's the surest way to cheer you up."

"Alex, you really don't have to..." If there was one thing I didn't want, it was Alex trying to cheer me up.

"Come on," urged Alex, seeing me wavering. "You haven't seen the Medieval wing the Sainsburys built..."

"Do they have a check-out where I get to buy it and take it home if I like it?" I quipped sarcastically. 

Alex grinned triumphantly at the break in my mood. "No, but they've got a fabulous new brasserie with quite a nice bar..."

"And that's all you care about, isn't it?" I laughed, despite myself. 

Although I had wanted to crawl back home to my apartment and sulk, Alex seemed determined to drag me out and force me to cheer up. "Come on, Em's out of the shower. Get dressed, we'll walk down through Covent Garden. I'll even buy you lunch. Maybe a few cocktails before we hit the galleries?" Alex suggested hopefully.

Em declined to go with us, muttering some excuse about having work to catch up on, but she practically shooed Alex and I out of the house as if relieved to have me out from under her feet with my moods and my sulking. As Alex and I walked past the Seven Dials, window shopping along St. Martin's Lane, I couldn't help but start to feel vaguely hopeful, even happy. When he stopped outside a pub, gesturing inside with his head, I was sorely tempted.

"But it's barely noon, you lush!" I protested, but my resolve to be miserable was wavering.

"Oh, just the one. And we'll have sobered up after a few hours of Fra Lippi Liposuction and his medieval friends or whathaveyou..." He was already heading towards the bar, so I gave up trying to stop him.

An hour later, the two of us stumbled blinking up into the halls of the venerable National Gallery, three or four sheets to the wind, laughing and giggling over the paintings, cracking in-jokes and puns and generally causing great concern among the guards. Somewhere towards the end of the 19th Century, I turned to Alex and smiled. "I don't think I've had this much fun in ages. Museums just aren't as much fun without you."

"Pshaw!" blushed Alex. "And we've still got the portraits to go through!"

I tried to protest, but he was already dragging me towards the door. Shrugging, I let him lead me around the corner towards the National Portrait Gallery. Along the iron railing were hung placards advertising other exhibits around the city. I barely noticed them, but Alex paused slightly, almost on purpose, though he was trying quite hard to seem casual. Following his eyes, I glanced towards one of the placards, not noticing anything out of the ordinary at first. "What?" I shrugged, looking back at him.

Alex pulled an innocent face, shrugging nonchalantly, yet still gesturing back towards the poster with his entire body.

Turning back to the poster, I read it carefully "Stimulation: A Selection of Young British Artists from the Suuchi Collection" and then a name in the row of artists at the bottom jumped out at me. "Damien? This was a set-up, wasn't it, Alex?"

"Noooo..." he protested, shifting his weight from foot to foot like a thoroughbred, his shoulders weaving in denial of his words. "How was I to know this poster was here..."

"Alex!" I barked. He winced, trying his most innocent smile on me. "You knew about the show, didn't you? You didn't know this exact poster would be here, but you knew it was likely that I'd see one if we came here..." I accused. "Why are you doing this to me? Last night you wouldn't even let me talk to him, but now you're trying to rub his new exhibition in my face..."

Widening his smile, he looked at his feet and thrust his hands into his pockets. "But alright, I was hoping you'd see it." He paused, as if he'd been trying to think of a way to lead up to the next question. "I've got an extra invite to the opening this weekend, since Em is going to be on location in Paris..."

"I'm going to go back to New York this weekend," I insisted.

"Change your flight," Alex urged.

"I can't," I whined, barely believing that I was even considering it. "It'll cost me at least a hundred quid to reschedule. Besides, weren't you trying to _prevent_ me from talking to Damien last night?" 

"I didn't want you talking to Damien when you were angry and he was drunk. I care too much about both of you to let you do that! Yes!"

"Did Damien put you up to this?" I sighed. 

Alex shook his head and grinned at me from under his hair. "Damien doesn't even know," he confessed.

I turned away, throwing my hands up in the air. "No fucking way, Alex, I'm not going!"

"But you would have, if it had been his idea."

"That's different! Of course it would be different, if he... if he..." My voice became very quiet. "If he still wanted me." I paused. "But he doesn't, does he, Alex?"

"I don't know. You know how well he hides his emotions," he sighed, turning away. "He's not happy. I know that much."

"So you have reason to believe..." I continued, desperate for a glimmer of hope.

"I don't know, Kate, I don't know!" spat Alex, as if suddenly unsure of his own motives in this plan. Had it even been a plan, or had it just been one of those wild, half thought out impulsive schemes of his?

I stared at the poster, my eyes drawn again and again to his name. There was still a flame there, undoubtedly. Suddenly, I was seized with a fierce will. This wasn't over, I wasn't giving up, just like that. There was no way I was going to lose Damien without a fight.

The walk to Alex's flat seemed shorter on the way back; I thought he was insane for giving it up, even if he was moving somewhere larger or posher, simply because it was so damned convenient. As we walked up the flights of stairs, I heard female laughter from inside. When Alex swung back the door, I saw Em and Kate Sutton laughing over a magazine and a bottle of wine.

"Em, darling," exclaimed Alex, walking over and kissing her hello. "So, I invited Other Kate to take that spare invitation to the opening of _Stimulation_ ," stage whispered Alex with so much raising of his eyebrows and winking that I wondered for a moment if he was having a seizure. "Since you're going to be in _Paris_ for the weekend."

"I was," she shrugged, giving the magazine back to Kate and getting up to fetch two more wine glasses for Alex and I. "But the band were being so silly about the photo shoot - they insist on wearing ridiculous robot masks! So, I cancelled it. I'm free for the weekend." 

"You know, _Stimulation_... Damien's show..."added Alex. The two of them exchanged glances so meaningful that I was almost embarrassed to be in the same room as them.

"Oh... _Oh_!" exclaimed Em, as if finally understanding the plan. "Oh yes, Kate, you should go. I never much cared for his art much anyway. I think you'd get much more out of it than I would."

"Damien bloody Hearse?" piped up Kate Sutton, always eager to get in a good juicy bit of gossip. "I thought he was dating..." The theatrical winks flying around the room seemed to fly right over her head.

" _What?_ Who?" I demanded.

Em kicked her under the table, but Kate continued, oblivious. "Oh I thought he was dating that whore from that group... oh, what are they called? The Plungers or something..." Suddenly catching sight of Em making the "zip it" gesture silently from across the room, she stopped in mid sentence.

"What?" I exploded, the green monster of jealousy clawing up my insides. "The fucking Plungers?" I had heard of them, the third rate crap girl group currently being touted as the next Charms, despite the fact that none of them even knew how to play the instruments that they posed with in their videos. "What, he couldn't pull a fucking All Spice?"

Kate turned bright red, her mouth rounded into a perfect O as she realised what she had just let slip. "Oops."

"Which one?" I demanded.

"Claire...the bassist," whimpered Kate.

"Now, now, it was just an article in the tabloids this morning," soothed Em. "You know how much they distort things and blow them out of proportion..."

"The fucking ugly blonde one?" I exclaimed.

"Oh, I think she's quite sexy, actually," noted Alex with a shrug until Em reached over and smacked him a jealous tap on the side of the head. "Repulsive, hideous tart."

"I'll fucking kick her arse!" I swore. "Fuck that - I'll kick _his_ fucking arse!"

"Kate..." sighed Em.

Turning back to Alex, I stared at him defiantly. "Why the hell did you ask me to go to his opening if you knew he was seeing someone else?"

"I didn't _know_..." protested Alex in almost believable innocence, glaring at Kate, who turned to glare at Em.

"Em, you can have your invitation back. I'm not going if he's going to be there with some slag!" I spat, turning to run for the safety of my room, then realising that I didn't have one. Not knowing where else to go, I ran for the relative safety of the toilet and locked myself in. What the hell had I been thinking, letting Alex talk me into such a stupid scheme? The dizzy drunk of the afternoon was wearing off, leaving me maudlin and full of self loathing - the dangerous combination that had started me off on this long road.

I washed my face, brushed my hair and straightened my clothes, trying to gather my thoughts, then opened the door and peered out cautiously into the flat. Alex and Kate Sutton were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa, sipping their wine and squabbling over the remote control. But from across the kitchen, Em caught my eye, and beckoned me over.

"Can I help you with dinner?" I offered, hoping to distract her from whatever it was she wanted to discuss with me. Em was devilish that way. If she wanted to talk to you about something, she would never stoop to actually summoning you to an audience, but you would invariably find yourself drawn into the conversation she wished to have.

"Oh, that would be lovely. Are you any good at peeling potatoes?"

"Fair..."I generally get more potato in the pot than peel in the bin. Got a sharp knife...? Ta."

"So..." ventured Em, in a tone that made it clear that my attempt at distraction had not been successful. "Do you _want_ that extra invite to go to Damien's opening? I really don't mind if you take it - I've got a lot of work in the darkroom I need to catch up on."

"I..." My breath caught in my throat. I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted desperately to see Damien, but the idea of seeing him with another woman made my stomach twist with envy.

"You're still in love with him, aren't you?" probed Em.

"No!" I snapped, then shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. "Of course not. Where did you hear that?"

"Alex seems to think you are."

"Oh, Alex thinks I'm in love with anyone I look at more than twice." I rolled my eyes to express my disbelief. It had been enough that I had had to confess my weakness to him - did he have to broadcast it to the world?

"Well, Alex probably knows you better than anyone else on earth," she pointed out, then pointedly added "Except maybe Damien."

I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again resentfully. Of course she was right. "What does it matter? I have no chance of winning him back."

"If you have any unresolved emotions for Damien, you owe it to yourself, and to him, to confront them," she urged. "You can't just solve your problems by running away from them and ignoring them."

"Why not?" I quipped. "It's always worked before." I was lying. It had made things easier to deal with in the short term, but in the long run, it had never worked. Things I ignored had a habit of growing while my back was turned, then popping up and biting me when I least wanted them to. Was it better to turn around and confront and dispel them before they had a chance? No, I wasn't listening to Em's feelgood advice.

"Kate!" sighed Em, exasperated with my flippancy, pausing to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a trail of flour across her face.

"Damien doesn't want me back anyway..." I moaned, turning towards her, my eyes desperate for any sort of sympathy. "I have really fucked up this time, haven't I? I don't know what the hell to do to make things better with him."

"Sometimes, when you really feel like that, the only thing to do is to admit that you've made a mistake, pick yourself up and go on," Em told me, slowly and carefully. "The only thing that stops you is pride. I think sometimes people are more afraid of making fools of themselves than of getting hurt."

I bit my lip thoughtfully. If I didn't know that she spoke from hard and painful experience, I would have thought that she was mocking me.

"Do you still love him Damien?"

"Never stopped." I didn't even have to think about that one.

"Go to the opening," Em urged. "Go talk to him."

 

 

"I don't know why I'm here," I sighed, tightening my grasp on my wineglass, trying very hard to concentrate on my shoes and avoid looking around the room at the people surrounding us.

"For the free drinks and cheese," quipped Alex, stuffing his face with a hunk of Roquefort. "Are you going to eat that Stilton on your plate?"

"Go ahead, you take it," I shrugged.

"You are nervous, aren't you? Giving up cheese? You?" laughed Alex, though I notice he took advantage of my mental disquiet to relieve me of the cheese. "You look fantastic, you know," he assured me, giving me a quick squeeze.

I snorted disparagingly on the surface, but beamed internally. Alex never usually noticed how I looked. "So have you seen him?" I whispered. "Or her..."

Alex shook his head, though he seemed more interested in scoping out the refreshments table than looking over the other occupants of the room. "I've not even seen his work here."

"I think there's another room through there. Shall we have a look?"

Casting one last loving look back towards the refreshment table, Alex sighed then shrugged, gesturing towards the door. "After you."

"No, you go first..." I urged.

Alex raised an eyebrow and snickered, as if to say _You? Afraid of anything? I don't believe it..._ then shrugged and loped off in front of me. "All clear," he reported, returning after a few minutes. "But they've got spirits in there..."

"I could do with a good stiff drink..." I observed, and made a bee-line for the bar.

"Kate!" I heard a voice at my elbow and turned to see Damien's old friend, Sarah standing beside me, nursing a glass of whisky. "What are you doing here?"

My face fell and I felt like running from the room. What was I doing here? Even his friends hated me now.

"No, I didn't mean it like that," laughed Sarah, punching me good-naturedly in the shoulder, and I realised she was well on her way to being plastered. "I thought you were on tour of the States for the next two years or something..."

"Where did you hear that?" I probed, accepting a gin and tonic from the bartender.

"Oh, around..." she laughed, then changed the subject with a raucous laugh, slamming her drink down in one gulp. Damien? Why was he taking an interest in my touring plans? "Oi, did you like my sculpture?"

"I didn't see it... which one is yours?"

"Come 'ere I'll show you..." she offered, leaping down off her barstool and taking me by the hand. I turned and smiled apologetically at Alex, but he seemed perfectly happy to take Sarah's place at the bar. "Over here..."

I couldn't help myself. With my senses blurred by the alcohol, I burst out laughing, then tried to stop myself before I could offend Sarah. However, instead of being offended, she started to snigger madly herself.

"Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say. I get similar reactions from all the girls... at least the ones who are honest enough to tell me their real opinions. The women laugh, and the men look vaguely uncomfortable... Well, the men, except from Damien, who cackled like a fishwife."

"He would..." I laughed, then suddenly grew quiet, remembering why I was here. "Is he here?" I ventured, trying to cover my nervousness with a cavalier veneer.

Sarah looked around and shook her head, her forehead creasing. "No, he's late, as usual... if he's going to show up at all..."

"But I thought he had some work in this show as well!" Dammit, if I'd gone to all this trouble, and he didn't even attend...

"He does..." Sarah's eye were suddenly filled with curiosity, but she was far too polite to ask the questions that were so obviously bubbling under the surface.

"Where?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Sarah looked at me as if I were mad, then shrugged, and gestured all around us. I looked up and realised that the walls all around us were covered with brightly coloured patterns. At first they just looked random, like his spin paintings, but soon I started to discern patterns. That vaguely resembled a ribcage... that could be a pelvis... and that could be...

"Oh my god..." 

It was the MRI scan that had been taken while Damien and I made love, only blown up 100 times and wrapped around the wall so that the entire room was enveloped in the clinically rendered embrace of two lovers. On one hand it was almost grisly, yet on the other, it was intricately beautiful ... Damien at his finest and most inspired. Yet to look at it made me feel weak in the knees and almost sick with longing. We had been so in love, so dizzyingly happy - at the time it had seemed like a pure and joyous expression of our feelings. Now it just seemed like my shame and loss displayed to the world in the last revenge of a jilted lover.

"It's gorgeous, isn't it?" observed Sarah. "Though I half suspect most of the people in here don't have a clue what the hell it is... must make you feel a bit funny, though..."

"A bit funny, yes," I echoed, but my words were lost in the buzz of conversation. Our most intimate and private moments, the joy of love, the pain of loss, spread out for the world. For a moment, I felt a vague flicker of exposure, but it wasn't exploitation, it was simply the expression of everything we'd ever felt about each other. No, it wasn't everything... that would imply that it had only ever been sex between us. It hadn't just been sex, it had been the blood and sinews and teeth and bones of everyday life together.

A familiar nasal voice whined behind me, and I turned, startled to see Charles Suuchi standing behind us, gloating over his most recent acquisition.

"It's his finest piece in years... positively inspired. I've been after him for months, but he didn't want to sell it. I offered him half a million pounds and he turned it down, claiming it had _sentimental value_. Then the girl left him, and his agent called me up, offering it to me. For a full million pounds, I might add. I talked him down to 750."

The smug fucking bastard! He knew I was beside him - it was his way of rubbing my loss and his triumph in my face. I winced, wondering if I should go over and slap his self-satisfied face, then wondered what I thought that would accomplish. Suuchi hasn't driven Damien away from me, though he was obviously delighted with the results; I'd done it myself, with my paranoid insecurities and my self destructive infidelity.

"Kate, are you alright?" I jerked my attention back to Sarah, to find her staring at me. "Do you want to go into the other room?"

"I..." I didn't even get a chance to answer before there was a disturbance at the entrance to the room.

"Damien!" exclaimed Suuchi behind me. "So nice of you to join us..."

I turned to see Damien and a girl enter a room, their faces flushed and their clothes vaguely dishevelled. How many times had Damien and I walked into a room like that, fresh from a bout of claustrophobic sex in the back of our car? God, she was even more appalling than I had expected. Combat pants and a vest at an art opening? I didn't have much respect for the "establishment" but I knew when to make an impression.

"Could she possibly be wearing any more make-up?" hissed Sarah in my ear, and I turned to her with a shocked expression. "It's certainly not going to make up for her lack of taste in clothes."

"Hush, Sarah, you thought worse about me when you first met me," I offered charitably, though inside I was overjoyed at the show of camaraderie.

"Perhaps, but I knew that you were at least beautiful. She's got a face like a doll - nothing human about her. Do you think that's her real nose, or has she had plastic surgery?"

" _Sarah_!"

"Somebody get me a fucking drink," grunted Damien, storming straight over to the bar without even noticing any of us.

"You drink too much, Damien. Can't we get through a fucking party without you getting plastered for once?" snarled back Claire, her voice a rasp. 

"God, that must be some studio magic to make her sound sexy on the records," I sniggered and Sarah exploded quietly into her whisky glass.

"Shut the fuck up!" barked Damien, stabbing a finger in his girlfriend's direction.

"Can we have one fucking night without an argument?"

"Argument? This isn't an argument, this is a screaming match. You're not even fucking intelligent enough to have an argument so shut your bloody gob..." Damien blustered, practically seizing his drink from the bartender.

I winced, then fought the urge to gloat... that wasn't the flush of sex, it was the flush of heated tempers. They were miserable! _Wait_ , why was I happy that Damien was miserable?

"Damien, come over here, I have some people I'd like you to meet from the Museum of Modern Art in New York..." drawled Suuchi in his most ingratiating tone.

"Fuck the Museum of Modern Art," exploded Damien. 

"Ah, artists... you know how temperamental they can be," sighed Suuchi with an apologetic wave.

"You want temperamental? I'll show you fucking temperamental..." snarled Damien. I hated the anger in his voice, because I knew it was his way of masking the hurt.

"Let's go," I whispered to Sarah. "I love him too much to watch him destroy himself like this."

"You still..." Sarah looked at me strangely, as if seeing something for the first time.

"I've got to get out of here..." I choked, turning around to leave, but stumbling unintentionally into the fray.

It was like stepping into the path of a charging bull. The moment I moved, Damien caught sight of me, and I was caught, frozen in his gaze like a deer blinded by headlights. For nearly a minute, we just stared at each other. He looked tired, his eyes robbed of their light by alcohol and ringed with dark patches, and he had gained weight, his face puffy from drinking.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Damien moved quicker. In a single move, he picked up what was left of his drink and threw it in my face. I stood there, not knowing what to do or what to think, feeling the alcohol stinging my eyes, the ice cold on my chest where it had fallen down my dress.

"Go on," urged Damien. "Fucking say whatever it was you came to say!" I remained silent, trying to keep the tears from rolling down my face, blending with the alcohol. "Fucking waste of a drink," he snorted, then whirled around and stormed from the room.

The crowd held its collective breath. Why was it every time Damien and I went to an opening, something dramatic involving thrown drinks seemed to happen? Suuchi looked like he was going to break into applause, already the visualising the next day's headlines. The girl, Claire, looked annoyed, as if her greatest shot at publicity had walked out of the room. None of them gave a shit about him - they were just using him. No one moved to follow him - even his friends seemed frightened to. Sarah was holding out a napkin, but I batted it away, then dashed after him.

"Which way did he go?" I demanded. Someone pointed towards the men's room , and without thinking, I pushed my way in after him, praying that he was alone. Then again, the mood he was in, I doubted anyone would want to stay in a small room with him for more than a few moments.

There was another man standing at a urinal, but as soon as he saw me, he finished quickly and jogged embarrassedly past me to the door, muttering "Oops, sorry, Miss!" Damn fucking English - I barge into a urinal and they apologise.

Damien didn't even bother to turn around, continuing with his business. You lived with someone long enough, I supposed you got used to that sort of thing. Eventually, he zipped up his pants and turned around, walking over to the sink and washing his hands, staring defiantly at his own reflection, doing his best to ignore me.

"Damien..." I finally ventured.

Finally, he snapped away from his own reflection and stabbed me with his icy blue gaze. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

"I thought that was obvious."

"Nothing with you is ever obvious," Damien snarled, turning around, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lighting one.

"I missed you," I finally confessed.

"You missed me," Damien drawled sarcastically, drawing every syllable out into a sneer. "What? More like you're just fucking jealous, now you see that I've got something going on with someone else?"

"I'm not jealous," I insisted, defiantly, pointlessly, and completely mendaciously, as I felt a lightning bolt of pain surge inside me at the thought of him with Claire. Suddenly I was on the edge of tears, completely helpless in the face of my emotions towards him. "Alright, you've got it in one. I am hugely, cripplingly jealous. Yes."

"Good," he snapped back.

"Damien," I sighed reproachfully. How could he be so cruel?

"You feel that burn deep in the pit of your stomach right now? You feel that? That's jealousy. Remember that feeling. Hold that feeling in your mind, because that's probably what Jeremy felt when you were off with Tristram. That's exactly what Alex felt when you were running around with Peter Hagstrom."

"That's not fair, Dama. It's not the same, it's..." Whatever it was that Jeremy had felt about me, it was nothing compared to this tidal surge of emotion that Damien inspired in me.

"It's exactly the same. And it's exactly what I felt when I saw you run off with Thom Eboracum," he confessed, the icy tone of his voice finally cracking to reveal the emotion underneath.

We stared at each other across the marble expanse of the sinks for a long time, before I could get my voice to work again. "I've left him. I kicked him out. I dumped him..." I had been about to say _I dumped him for you_ , but I could not compound the mess by lying any further.

"It's a bit late for that, don't you think?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This wasn't getting anywhere. All I was doing was hurting him more, when all I wanted was to make things right again. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come."

"Then why did you come?"

"I've been worried about you... I just wanted to see if you were OK... Alex offered me the invitation, I thought..."

"You thought what?"

So what was I supposed to say? _I thought I could win you back; I thought I could apologise and you would fall into my arms and..._ "Like I said, I wanted to see how you were doing," I lied.

"I'm fine!"

"You're not fine, Damien, look at you..."

"OK, I'm not fine. I look like hell! I feel like shit all of the time, I can't sleep, I can't eat, I drink too much, I work too hard and I'm shagging a woman I can't stand and who is probably only using me because she thinks I'm good for her image, and why? Because she reminds me of the one time in my life that I thought I was truly happy... Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"No!" I spat.

"Then I ask you one last time, and please, for the love of god, tell me the truth this time, why did you come here?" he repeated, beginning to get really annoyed with me.

"I thought..." I took a deep breath, and plunged headlong into the truth. "I still love you, you know."

Damien practically burst out laughing. "Is that it, at last? I thought so. You thought you could just waltz in here, after everything, just walk into the room, and I would just have to see you, and boom! Like that, everything would just be forgiven, I would fall into your arms, and we would go sailing off into the sunset?" He paused, rolling his eyes. "How stupid do you think I am?"

Sinking back against the tile wall, I tried my best not to break out into uncontrollable sobs, failing completely as tears started to roll down my cheek.

"Oh, don't start that crying shit on me, Kate, it doesn't work any more. I don't believe you. Because that is the worst part of this, for me. It's not even that you let that little boss-eyed ginger wanker stick his crooked dick in you. It's that you lied to me. _Repeatedly_. I can no longer believe a fucking thing you say or do."

"I... I..." For once, I was actually literally speechless. Finally, I choked out "I'm not crying to try and fucking manipulate you, I'm crying because I've fucked up my life so badly I don't know how to get it back."

For a moment, he simply stared at me, then the realisation slowly dawned across his face. "You're serious. My god, you were fucking serious, weren't you? That is what you wanted, isn't it?"

I didn't have the strength left to lie. "Yeah."

"Oh. So it didn't work out with Eboracum." I could practically hear Damien rolling his eyes. "So you're back to pick up with second choice consolation prize me again, then." Sarcasm dripped from his voice.

"Damien, no, it's not like that. You don't understand."

"You're right, I don't understand," Damien parroted. "That's the problem. Just my lack of _understanding_ instead of, you know, _you_ shagging that little red-headed freak and then _lying_ about it for what? Three? Four months? Cause nothing is ever your fault, is it, Kate?"

"Just shut up, Damien, you don't know the whole story..."

"You keep saying that, Kate, and the more I hear of the fucking story, the worse it gets. You were shagging him while you were living with me. And then you go off on tour - and you don't take me, no, you don't even invite me. But you just fly him out and take him along instead?

"It wasn't like that, Damien..." I protested. "I didn't shag him when I was living with you. OK, I gave him a blow-job, once, when I was so drunk I barely knew what I was doing..."

"Again with the _I was drunk_ excuse."

"And I didn't invite him on tour. He just fucking turned up, out of the blue. What was I supposed to do?"

"Tell him _no_? Tell him to fuck off and go home? Did that just not cross your mind?"

"It did, but..." I hesitated, not even knowing where to begin. Had Thom physically threatened me to get me to marry him? Was that what he'd given me the black eye for? I did not know, I might never know. But the constant temper tantrums, the emotional manipulation, the whirl of paranoid insecurities he constantly played upon? And the tranquillisers, the drinking binges and the blackouts... Would Damien even believe me?

"But _what_? What story are you going to lay on me this time? Who are you going to blame this time? Cause right now, I can see only one person to blame, and that is your own, stupid, fucking bloody-mindedness. Where was it going to end, Kate? How long were you going to carry on like this, stringing me along, lying to me? Telling me you loved me, while you were probably in a hotel bed with him? Were you going to just marry me, and then the next afternoon, marry him as well?"

He was clearly trying to make a point with the most absurd exaggeration he could think of, but he had hit on the truth. My face crumpled.

" _What_?" he exploded gruffly. He always could read me like a book. "Is there more? Is there something else you're not telling me?"

"Yes. There's more." I could no longer keep the shaking out of my voice. "Oh god, no one else knows this except my closest friends. I used it to blackmail Thom into dropping the lawsuit against you, so you cannot tell a fucking soul. But... I actually did marry him. In Vegas. I don't know why. Don't ask me to explain, because I can't. But I'm not lying to you about him any more. That was a thing, that... _happened_."

Damien looked as if I had just shot him in the stomach. The anguish in his eyes was more then I could bear. If I could take it all back, if I could wind back time and make it not have happened, I would, but there it was, cold and ugly in the fluorescent light of the toilets, the truth.

"Damien!" I cried. "Please say something."

"Leave me alone." Turning around, he leaned his forehead against the cool of the mirror. Every bone in my body wanted to get up and go over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and laying my head against his shoulder, but I had no idea if that would help or harm my case. If I even had a case.

I didn't. It was over; his silence told me that. He didn't want me any more; he doesn't trust me any more, and with bloody good reason. What the hell was I doing here, with what was left of my pride in tatters as I crouched on the floor of a fucking men's room? Standing up, I backed away from him towards the door, then turned and fled.

Alex was still at the bar, chatting heartily with the man next to him, barely noticing me as I touched him gently on the shoulder. "Alex, I've got to go," I insisted.

"Yeah, yeah, in a minute... have you met my new friend, Marcus? He's going to paint my portrait..."

"Alex, I've got to go _now_!"

"Hang on," he stuttered, realising what I was saying through the fog of cognac. "Give me a moment, I'll get ready."

"No, never mind, stay and enjoy yourself, I think I need to be alone..." I stuttered. It was a lie, of course, but the thought of being with Alex in this sort of effusive mood was worse than being by myself, so I found my coat and stumbled out into the night. Curse the Tate, I swore to myself. There was not a taxi in sight; looked like it was the long walk back to Covent Garden. Taking a deep breath, I turned up the collar of my coat and took off at a brisk pace down the embankment, letting the night air clear my head.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Em Evesham, Kate Sutton and Kate Gordon all go to the Met Bar, get drunk and name their breasts. And after another... eventful run-in with Damien, Kate G finally confesses the truth of her marriage to Thom. But when Alex starts using Kate G as an excuse to avoid his upcoming marriage, she realises that the triangle is becoming too unstable.

I don't know how I let Kate Sutton and Em talk me into one last hens' night. Kate had muttered something about my missing Em's official wedding shower, and this being a perfect excuse to go out on a drinking binge by ourselves. 

"Nine pounds," I muttered, staring at the cocktail in my hand as if I was afraid that it was going to explode at any moment. It was a good thing we'd had a few shots of tequila at Em and Alex's house before heading out to the Met Bar. Kate Sutton's idea, of course, as there was no way I could afford to get drunk on nine pound drinks.

"Can you fucking believe it? Nine fucking pounds for a fuck of a drink? Fuck this shit!" added Em. I couldn't believe that I had ever thought of Em - the Champion Swearer with the truck-driver mouth - as a shy, puritan little girl. Then again, she had changed over the years, hadn't she? I decided that I liked the new self-confident, take charge Em a lot better than the shy virtuous Pre-Raphaelite icon, swear-words and all.

"Wow, I didn't know that word could be used as a noun, a verb and an adjective all in one sentence," Kate Sutton teased.

"That's what - thirty quid for the whole round?" Em gasped. "And I thought the Groucho was expensive!"

Kate Sutton glared at us both, pushing her way past the hordes of fashion models into a booth. "Would you two tightwads shut up? This is the Met Bar. This is _the_ hottest nightspot in all of London right now. The fact that we even got in at this time of night, let alone got served at the bar means that _We. Are. The Beautiful People_. Ladies, _We. Have. Arrived_." Kate's words were as overblown and stylised and over the top as the fifteen-minutes-ahead-of-the-times décor of the lounge.

"Nine pounds," I repeated to myself in disbelief. "That's what - fifteen dollars? You know, I can remember fifteen dollars was my entire food budget for the week!"

"Hush!" shushed Kate, looking around deftly behind the coloured lenses of her sunglasses. "Oh my god, is that Armani Van Hagar over there talking to Lilly Lichen?"

"Who the hell is Armani Van Hagar?" Em wondered out loud. "One of your fashion designer friends? Damn, if he is, why does he let his friends come out with him wearing jeans and a skirt?"

"He's a DJ, Em," I teased. "I've been on tour for the past million years and even I know that! Don't tell me they don't get the NM fucking E in Japan."

"What is the point?" obsessed Em drunkenly, sipping at her drink as she stared at the fashion model's outlandish garb. "Jeans and a skirt. I mean, talk about overkill. Did she take so many drugs that she forgot she had already put on clothes, and got dressed twice?"

"It's all been done before," Kate sniffed. "It's like a poor reproduction of Vivienne Westwood's bondage trousers from 1976."

"Jeans and a skirt," repeated Em, shaking her head in outrage, unable to let it go. "I mean, honestly!"

"Well, it's better than ten-inch turn-ups," I teased, looking down at the hems of Em's trousers.

"Shut up," sniffed Em. "They're Alex's - they're the only thing I could find that were clean, and I didn't want to be constantly tripping over four extra inches of fabric. I had no idea it was so... trendy." She glanced uncomfortably over at the party next to us, a gang of rather boisterous Ad Executive types in painfully fashionable clothes.

"You're kidding. With those gams of yours, Alex's jeans don't fit you?" squawked Kate, poking her in the thigh.

"He has a 36" inseam!" protested Em. "I'm only a 32!"

"Only a 32," sighed Kate, rolling her eyes. "God, I'm lucky if 32 fucking inches comes up to my tits!"

"Well, lucky for you Jarvis is a tit man, not a leg man," I sniggered, patting her infuriatingly on the top of her spiky-haired head. It was a long standing joke that Em and I, giants in any other company but each other's at 5'10" and 5'9", teased Kate mercilessly about her stature.

"And I dare you to find a better pair in the industry!" pronounced Kate snottily, thrusting out her chest proudly.

"Oh god, are we going to get drunk and name our breasts?" I giggled.

"You know, I just don't get it," sighed Em, pushing her hair out of her eyes, and leaving it standing up perpendicular on top of her head. She and Alex had been together far too long - they were really starting to take on the aspects of each other, down to their physical gestures. "I mean, what is the big deal about boobs?"

Kate and I both exploded in laughter at the earnestly confused tone in her voice.

"They're just mammary glands!" insisted Em. "I'm sorry, but I just don't find them terribly interesting"

"That's cause you haven't got any," sniggered Kate evilly.

"Shut _up_!" sniffed Em in a huff, puffing out her chest proudly. "I'm a 36C, I'll have you know."

"36 _B_ ," corrected Kate. Em glared at her, but Kate stood her ground. "Look, I've pinned clothes on you, you can't lie to me. What do you think, Kate?"

"Kate doesn't count. She's had kids, she's actually used hers," Em sniffed. I could never quite tell, when she was squabbling with Kate Sutton, if it was serious or joking.

"Damien always used to say that I still had a _nice rack_ ," I contradicted, straightening my back to show off my cleavage. Since Ian had been born, I had to admit that they were no longer as supple and perky as they'd once been, but they had swollen pleasingly.

"Honestly, I mean, listen to us," protested Em, ever the feminist, leaning forward. "Why are we putting up with it, not just putting up with it, but being proud of this objectification?"

"Oh, come on, lighten up, Em," I sighed, knocking my glass against hers. "It's not like we don't ever objectify boys."

Kate grinned evilly, leaning backwards and draping her arms over the back of her chair and spreading her legs in a startlingly accurate imitation of a lager lout. "Soo, wharruh yoo, ven? A bum girl orra bulge girl?" Em literally spat a mouthful of cocktail out across the table, and nearly collapsed in a fit of giggles, unable to answer, but Kate changed in the blink of an eye, grabbing her crotch and pretending to spit like an apprentice homeboy. "Yeah, whassup, girlfren'? My man, J. he got him a skinny little ass, but oh man, baby got _front_!"

"Yo, girlfren'!" I replied in my brassiest Queens accent, slapping Kate a high five. "I mean, Damien might have a pillow butt, but you should see his _basket_!" I made a rough gesture similar to the universal sign language for an hourglass figure, only lower, in the vicinity of my lap.

Kate howled with laughter as Em looked back and forth between us, her eyebrows knitted as if wondering whether to be protest and be offended, or laugh and join in. Finally she grinned, leaning forward and waving her hand in denial. "No, you two are both wrong. I mean, look at Alex. When he turns around and shakes his hips, oh my god. That arse-wiggle! The bum is totally where it's at!"

"See? See?" crowed Kate triumphantly, turning back towards me.

"But Alex _has_ no arse," I teased.

"No! No!" protested Em. "I mean, have you ever seen Alex in his tight black jeans?" she continued, her eyes lighting up. She hadn't wanted to have this conversation in the first place, and now we couldn't shut her up. "He bends over to pick something up, and these two little... _ridges_ appear in his pants..."

That should have provoked a twinge, a vague ache like a probing finger brushing a faded bruise, but I just smiled and shook my head.

"I'm not surprised by your choice, Kate," giggled Kate, prodding me with the swizzle stick that had held the olive from her martini. "I know there's nothing you like more than a bit of trouser...Have you seen the new Crest video? I'm surprised that boy even has a sperm count! That's the defence you should have taken in the custody case, Kate - there's no way Ian could be Tristram's with those hip-huggers squeezing the family jewels."

That hurt. It shouldn't have, but it did. I knew that Em and Kate were just teasing, but it was a sensitive spot. So I liked a 'bit of trouser' as Kate so eloquently put it. How had something so enjoyable to look at led to consequences so painful? Mumbling something about the loo, I slid out of the booth and stood up, but conversation had already twisted back to the various merits of certain gentlemen's rear ends.

I slid across the room towards where I was guessing the ladies room might be located, trying to avoid the gaze of anyone who might know who I was, but the Met Bar was hardly the place to try to be anonymous. This was where celebrities went to notice each other, not to hide. William Gallivant, holding court at the snooker table, turned and acknowledged me with a brief nod. So he considered me a friend again, now that I was no longer dating Alex? I nodded back but kept my head down. A familiar looking chartpop singer, shimmying up to the bar, waved and gestured me over, but I shook my head and plunged back into the crowd. My god, did this place not have fire regulations for occupancy?

Spotting a corridor down the back, I pushed past the last clump of people and darted down it, swinging open a door hopefully marked with a female symbol, only to be greeted by two All Spices and a Boyskool sniffing coke out of a make-up case. God damn, was there no respite in this place?

For a few minutes, I hid in one of the stalls, then splashed my face with water and headed back out to find Em and Kate. Well, maybe I better get some drinks to provide an excuse for the length of my absence. Though £27 for ten minutes seemed a hell of a fee. Someone cut in next to me, catching the eye of the bartender before I could. I consoled my annoyance at being passed over by wondering cattily how this interloper in baggy jeans and a casual blazer had passed the rigorous dress code enforced by the terrifying bouncers. He turned, and his cropped hair caught my eye, but I dragged my gaze away. I had been seeing Damiens all night, I wasn't going to let myself be distracted now I was within sight of the bar.

"Right, cheers, mate," mumbled a familiar voice and my head turned as if by instinct.

For a moment, I stared at the drink, then at the familiar nailbitten fingers curled around it. "No, let me get it," I stuttered, catching him by the arm.

Damien turned around, his face quizzical. For a moment, shock registered across his face at the sight of me, but he was drunk enough not to react. "No, 'sallright. What are you having? I'll get you one," he offered, as if he'd forgotten that he'd left his last drink down the front of my dress the previous evening. Then again, maybe this was his way of trying to apologise or make up for it. 

As far as I was concerned, he had nothing to apologise for. I shook my head. "I'm buying a round for the girls."

He smiled slyly. "You can't afford a round here."

"I can, too. This one's on me," I hollered at the bartender, gesturing toward Damien's drink. "And a Long Island Iced Tea, a whisky sour and a gin and tonic!"

"Well, thank you," nodded Damien, before moving off through the crowd. Damn, how was he getting away? I didn't even have anything to say to him, I just wanted to be near him. The bartender had returned, bearing our drinks. There was no way I could follow Damien now, bearing three glasses.

"Thirty-six pounds, please," chirped the bartender. Thirty-six pounds? God, that was how many dollars? I didn't want to think about it. I was a pop star, this should mean nothing to me.

Scooping the glasses off the bar, I threaded my way back to our table and deposited them in front of a surprised Em and Kate. "Oh, Cheers, Kate. You didn't have to..."

"I'll be back in a minute," I stuttered, surveying the crowd, trying to see where Damien had gone.

"Come on!" insisted Kate, grabbing me by the arm. "This is our last night out together for ages!"

"I saw Damien up at the bar," I explained, then headed back into the crowd. What was I doing, tearing off like this after him? All I wanted was to just be near him. Was that so bad? I could see him, off in the corner with two men, one an actor I recognised from the television, the other a novelist, his face familiar from the Groucho Club bar. Drawn like a magnet, I moved across the room towards him, until I was standing directly behind him. "Hi," I managed to croak, trying to stop my face from shining with puppydog adoration.

Damien grunted an acknowledgement of my presence then turned back to his conversation. Resisting the urge to tug at the sleeve of his blazer like a little girl demanding attention, I tried to listen patiently, hoping for an opportunity to join the conversation, but it twisted interminably through the finer points of local football teams' performances. He was doing this on purpose, wasn't he, deliberately excluding me from the conversation? Well, really, it was my fault. Couldn't say I blamed him, after our last scene in the toilets of the Tate. After a few minutes, I gave up and turned to pick my way back across the room, but their conversation drifted after me.

"Good-looking bird, Hearsey, why didn't you introduce us?" ventured Television Actor in a loud, drunken voice I was obviously meant to overhear, though I did not catch Damien's reply. "What do you mean, more trouble than she's worth? Doesn't look that way to me." My ears burned, but I strained to catch the rest of the conversation. " _Ex_? With a pair of tits like that?" he exclaimed, in an eerie echo of my previous conversation with Em and Kate. "I bet she's a real goer. Go get her, Hearsey, didn't you see the way she was looking at you? She was gagging for it! If you don't, I'd be glad to take her off your..."

I heard the slap of flesh hitting flesh and then the tinkle of glass smashing, and turned to see the novelist physically restraining Damien by the neck of his jacket, and the television actor wiping a thin stream of blood from his nose.

"He hit me! Did you see that, Will? He fucking hit me!" squeaked the actor, clutching his face. "I'm going to sue you, you fucking lunatic!"

"Gentlemen, we don't want any trouble," soothed one of the bar staff, wrapping some ice in a napkin and handing it to the actor.

I was back beside Damien in an instant, pushing away the novelist and taking Damien by the arm. "Come on, Dama, let's go somewhere else..." I urged. What the hell had just happened? I didn't know what to make of his behaviour any more. One minute he'd been ignoring me, the next punching people out defending my honour.

Damien shrugged me off. "Leave me alone, please, I'm fine," he whispered gently but insistently.

"Come with me, we can go to another bar," I offered.

For a moment, Damien glared at the television actor, glared back at me, then shook his head stiffly, shaking his jacket back onto his shoulders. "No, I don't think that's a good idea. Let's get out of this place, Will. It's really gone downhill lately."

"Damien!" I cried, in a confused and hurt voice, my eyes wounded.

He turned around, flashing me a strangely desperate glance, then moved away through the crowd. The conflicted emotions running across his face were unreadable.

"Shall we go, too?" asked a quiet voice at my side, and I turned to see Em looking at me concernedly. I nodded silently, swallowing the last of my expensive drink then putting the glass down on a nearby table. "What was that fight about?" she probed, but I shook my head to indicate that I did not wish to discuss it. "Right. Where to now? Mars or Freuds?"

"To tell the truth, I no longer really feel much in the mood for drinking," I confessed, staring mournfully after Damien's retreating back as he exited the club. 

Kate rolled her eyes and swallowed the remains of her drink. "Am I ever going to get to finish a drink in peace? I am very tempted to go over and tell that Damien Hearse that whatever his problem is, it is interfering with my vices, and I object to that."

At the very last moment, just before spilling out onto the street, Damien turned around, looking about as if searching the crowd for someone. When his eyes met mine, I barely dared to breathe, feeling my entire body tense with longing, but terrified to let it show in my face, for fear of breaking that tiny moment of contact. His face flickered with longing for a moment, before giving way to cold fury, but then Will touched him on the arm, and he turned away, slipping out into the street.

"How many people live in London?" I muttered. "Five million? Six million? And how many bars and restaurants do you think there are in W1? Dozens?"

"Yes, but we always end up at the same four or five," Em sighed. "Because we know that all of our friends will be there. That's the reason that you have favourite bars in the first place."

Of course. It was one of those little strands that sewed social scenes together, that bound a loose group of friends into a fellowship. It was how you kept a gang of a few dozen people knitted together in a city this size. They always said that this was the worst part of a breakup. It wasn't even the arguments or the fights - it was the long slow process of unravelling and dividing an entire community, his friends and her friends, my hangouts and your hangouts. 

It was at moments like this that I longed for the anonymity of the road, every night spent in a different club, seeing different faces, a million miles away from anyone who might recognise you or drag your memories back to places that they didn't want to go. "You know what?" I mused. "I just realised how much I am really looking forward to going back out on tour."

Em made a pained face, and looked around for Kate Sutton, but she was lost in conversation with some powdered homosexual who was clearly about to buy her a drink. "I don't think we're going to be leaving here any time soon. Are you alright, now that... now that he's left?"

I shook my head slowly. The dizzy drunk had worn off, and the last place that I wanted to be was some trendy, expensive, in-crowd watering hole. "Would you mind terribly if I just went home? I've really kind of lost the mood."

"Oh no, I'll go with you," Em offered, her eyebrows knitting together in concern. "We've lost Katie to the fashion crowd and besides, I really don't think that you should be alone right now."

"Thanks," I whispered as she made her apologies and said her goodbyes. I forced myself to look down at the ground as we exited the bar, refusing to meet the flashing camera eyes of the paparazzi, not daring to look down the street in the direction that Damien had disappeared.

"Alex?" called Em as we walked up the stairs, but the flat was deserted, a note on the kitchen table the only evidence that Alex had even been there. "Looks like he's gone out. I'm not sure where or for how long - you know his friends," she complained with a slightly annoyed air, then paused. "Can I get you a cup of tea, I mean, coffee?" I shook my head desperately. "A good stiff drink and a shoulder to cry on?"

I looked at her, nodded faintly, then collapsed on the sofa in a puddle of tears.

"Here, here," urged Em, returning from the other side of the room with two noxious looking bottles. Sitting down next to me, she patted me on the knee before balancing a box of tissues on one of the cushions. "I've got vodka and I've got tequila, but unfortunately, I've got no limes. What do you fancy?"

"I don't need that salt and limes crap. Just give me the tequila."

"Good choice." Handing the bottle over, she offered me a shotglass, which I shrugged off, raising the bottle to my lips and emptying a good swig into my stomach. "Kate, what happened, did you two have a fight?"

I shivered slightly as the tequila slid down my throat, then shook my head, passing the bottle over to Em. "No. One of his mates made some rude comments about me, and Damien punched him." I paused, wondering whether to trust my gut instinct or not. "If I'm not totally mistaken, I think he was... in some kind of twisted way, he was defending my honour or something."

"Really?" Em sank a shot herself, wincing at the rough aftertaste.

"I don't deserve it. His friend is right, I am some kind of fucking slut." I grabbed the bottle back from her. "I know what it must look like, to him, to his friends, to Alex, to you, to everyone else. What I did to Damien was inexcusable, and I understand that he has every right to hate me, but..."

"But _what_?" Poking me in the shin, Em took the bottle back from me. I paused, no longer sure of what to think. Then again, that was the whole point of the tequila. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're a slut. I don't know exactly what happened between you and Thom, but it hardly makes you a slut."

"I don't even really know what happened between me and Thom," I wailed.

Em stared at me carefully, as if appraising me. "Tell me how it happened. Go back to the beginning. How did it start? I mean, you and Damien seemed so happy; you were engaged, and then out of nowhere this whole thing with Thom..."

"It wasn't out of nowhere," I confessed. "I had a crush on him while we were working on the single."

"I knew it!" exclaimed Em. 

"Em!" I narrowed my eyes at her and she quieted down.

"Oh, it's alright," soothed Em, patting me on the hand. "If you need to talk, you know that you can trust me. I'm not one to throw stones when it comes to making... foolish decisions. Just tell me everything as well as you can remember."

"It started innocently enough," I confessed. "I had a crush on Thom while we were working on the single. It was _harmless_! I swear it was! Damien even knew about it, and he wasn't threatened, he just used to tease me about it."

Em looked down at her feet with a slightly guilty expression. "Actually... I wouldn't say Damien was _threatened_ , per se, but he _did_ talk to me about it. That night after you got engaged, and we were all supposed to get together at the Groucho? Alex was late, so Damien took me aside," she confessed. "He asked me, in my honest opinion, if I thought that he should be worried about Thom." She paused and took another gulp of her tequila as if fortifying herself.

"What did you say?"

She squirmed uncomfortably. "I don't remember exactly, Kate. I think I told him that I thought he had a reason to be... _worried_. That was definitely the word we used. But then he said that he didn't want to risk losing you by pressuring you. He knew how badly you reacted to jealousy, and he didn't want to provoke you."

I turned away from her, hoping she wouldn't see the streams of tears now pouring down my face. "I thought he didn't fucking care what I did," I finally sobbed. "Like, not being jealous of me meant he didn't really love me. I thought... I don't know what I thought. I mean, after we got engaged, it all got weird. I know it doesn't sound like it makes any sense, but I was so confused. I felt like... once he finally had me pinned down, he wouldn't want me any more."

"Kate, he wanted you more than ever..." Em soothed, putting her arm around me and pulling me close, stroking my hair gently. "He talked to me for nearly an hour about you. _Damien!_ Who has always fucking loathed me - he made peace with me, and talked to me, and even asked my advice about you because he knew that we were close. He said... he said that he had been pursuing you for so long, waiting for you to acknowledge how he knew you felt about him, and when he finally got that, he said, I'm trying to remember how he phrased it... He said something like that he felt like the kid on Christmas morning that wakes up to find his name on the biggest present under the tree."

I was crying so hard I could barely see, picking up the bottle of tequila then putting it back down again. He had used that phrase at another time, too, the morning after we were engaged. "That same fucking night... Do you know what I did? Thom and I had got too drunk to drive home, and we ended up... fooling around."

"Oh my god," gasped Em, and I felt her stiffen reflexively.

"No! It was a mistake. I knew it about 30 seconds after it happened... No, I knew it while it was happening, and I did it anyway. But it's not even like I actually had sex with him. Well, not really. I..."

"Did you sleep with him or not? How far did you get?" asked Em clinically, as if it made a difference.

"I gave him a blow job, alright?" I snapped drunkenly.

"Wow." Em blushed slightly. It was not an image that came easily at the thought of the prudish and conflicted Thom, I knew that. "No, sorry, Kate, I'd call that sex. I mean, if you caught Damien getting head from some gallery assistant, would you be angry?"

"I'd cut his fucking cock off," I growled, then relented. "I know. I know that what I did was wrong, but goddammit, we all make mistakes, don't we? That was all it was ever supposed to be. Me feeling insecure and unsure and confused about whether marrying Damien was the right thing, making a stupid, drunk mistake, and the moment it was over, I knew it was not what I wanted. I was never going to see Thom again. Honestly, I wanted it over. Do you believe me, Em? Please? If that was as far as it ever went, what would you say?"

Em glanced subconsciously over at the photograph of Alex over on the bookshelf, then forced a smile. "God knows, both Alex and I have made enough mistakes in our relationship. Human beings make mistakes - they forgive, forget, and then you don't make the same mistake again. I'm not saying what you did was right, and I'm not condoning it, but..."

"But you understand it?"

Em made a pained face that indicated that she did not agree. "I won't say I understand precisely, but if nothing else had happened with Thom, I would expect that Damien would forgive you eventually. You don't have to beat yourself up over it. But it didn't end there, did it? What I don't understand is how you got from making that mistake to... marrying your mistake."

I looked around for the bottle of tequila, desperately needing a drink, but it seemed to have vanished. "Thom did not want let go of it. He became obsessed with the whole thing. He e-mailed me over and over, and when I didn't respond to his e-mails, he showed up while I was on tour. He was in a terrible state, saying that his girlfriend had thrown him out and he kept insisting over and over that everything was my fault and..."

"Wait, wait, wait," interrupted Em, gesturing with the tequila bottle that seemed to have mysteriously reappeared in her lap. "He can't keep his dick in his pants, and that's _your_ fault?"

"I'm not saying that it wasn't my fault. I was as much to blame as him..."

"For you two... screwing around, sure. But for him getting thrown out by his girlfriend? If he was worried about her, he could have said no. Why didn't you tell him to piss off?"

"Em, he kept going on and on about how life was no longer worthwhile, and he didn't have anything left to live for, and I was terrified... Well, I kept remembering those same threats that Jeremy used to make." It had been long since I had even mentioned his name - it had been a conscious act of will to forget the entire experience. 

"Did Thom say that he was going to kill himself?" Em asked worriedly.

"I don't know, I don't remember. Not in so many words, but there were always these vague threats. He just kept saying that life didn't seem worth living. Perhaps I felt guilty about not believing Jeremy when he said that _he_ would kill himself."

Em paused and handed the bottle of tequila to me. "Kate, you don't have to feel guilty about Jeremy... Jeremy had other problems that were nothing to do with you. The drugs for a start..."

"I know!" I snapped. Jeremy was still someone that I didn't like to talk about. "I'm just trying to explain the state of mind that I was in when..."

"Kate, if he told you that he'd kill himself if you didn't marry him, that's emotional blackmail. You should not have to be with someone who's manipulating you like that!"

"No, no, he didn't say that he'd kill himself if I didn't marry him..." I paused, trying to force a memory that still wouldn't come. "To tell the fucking truth, I don't know for certain what the hell happened the day that I married him. I wasn't exactly thinking straight while I was on that tour," I stuttered, wondering how exactly to phrase it.

"I understand - you said you were confused ..."

"No. There was more to the whole thing with Thom than any of you know about. I've not talked about this to anyone but Maddie and Emma, and I don't think even they understand completely, even though they were actually there. I don't want to make this sound like I'm blameless, because I know that I'm not. But Em, honestly, please, tell me if I'm fucking crazy and spineless and irresponsible or if things can sometimes get further out of one's control than I know how to deal with." I stared at the bottom of the tequila bottle, then placed it back on the couch between us, looking up at her carefully. "Can you keep a secret?"

"I always have," Em assured me. Taking the tequila bottle from me, she nodded solemnly, making the playground gesture of _cross my heart and hope to die_.

I took a deep breath, perching on the edge of the couch, then let my guard slip and relaxed, flopping back into the cushions and staring up at the ceiling. Em sat beside me, staring at me concernedly, picking up a loose strand of my hair and tucking it back into place, a tender, almost motherly gesture.

"I was out of my mind while I was on that tour," I repeated. "I didn't know what I was doing when I married Thom."

"I know you didn't. You were confused, you must have not known what to do..."

"No!" I insisted. "I mean I literally did not know what I was doing." I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and told her the entire story. The alcohol, the tranquillisers, the black-outs, the constant fights, the emotional manipulation, the missing two days, the black eye, and that awful, final scene in the hotel room where he knocked me down and tore my dress in two.

"I'm not excusing what I did..." I explained. "But there were mitigating circumstances. I mean, do you think that..."

"Kate..." Em was stroking my hair now, trying to calm me down.. "Kate, Kate, you know... God, I mean..." She seemed utterly at a loss for words. "That marriage probably isn't even legal," she finally observed, trying to be sensible and helpful in the face of crisis.

I turned toward her, my eyes desperate. "I've really fucked up this time, haven't I? I've always seemed to be able to talk myself out of anything, no matter what, but this time? I don't know what the hell to do. I don't know how to get out of this"

Em bit her lip thoughtfully, still stroking my hair, but not answering, as if deep in thought. "Does Damien know the whole story behind this?" she finally asked.

"No! You can't tell him!"

"Why not? It..."

"It what?"

"It... Well, it doesn't change everything, which is what I was tempted to say, but... it explains some things. Why don't you want Damien to know?" she probed.

"Damien said, the other day, that I always tried to blame all of the problems I caused myself, by my own bloody-mindedness, on other people. That's all he's going to see this as - me trying to blame all of these problems on Thom, and refusing to take any of the responsibility for it. That is the furthest thing from my mind, Em. I _know_ that I fucked up. _I_ fucked up, I admit that. I'm not trying to place the blame on anyone else, honestly. But Damien is going to think that I am, and I'm just trying to slide my way out of it."

Em knitted her brows together. "I believe you." She paused. "But don't you think you should perhaps give Damien a little more credit?"

"Damien is feeling hurt, and angry, and betrayed, and justifiably so, and he is going to believe what he wants to believe." I yawned slowly, picking the bottle of tequila off the floor and looking at it lovingly, then putting it back down on the floor without taking another shot. I felt maudlin, drunk and exhausted, physically worn out from walking around the West End, and mentally drained from arguing with and about Damien.

"Do you still love him?" probed Em.

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" I snapped, then relented. "Of course I still love him. I never stopped."

"Did you tell him?"

"He doesn't believe me."

Em rolled her eyes. "So you just need to prove it to him."

"How?"

"Kate, if you need me to tell you that..." She shook her head slowly, then picked the bottle off the floor. "Just go to bed now. Go back and talk to Damien tomorrow when you're sober."

 

 

I woke, stiff and uncomfortable, on the sofa, one leg folded underneath me, the other poking up over the arm of the couch. Although it was comfortable enough to snuggle up on for an evening, this sofa was not designed to sleep someone as tall as me. Stirring slightly, I opened one eye and peered out across the room. Em's kitten was sitting on the coffee table, staring at me suspiciously. I moved slightly, and her eyes followed me, her haunches twitching and her tail wiggling as if she were about to pounce.

"Don't you dare," I threatened, quickly shifting out of the way so that the kitten jumped, befuddled, onto an empty patch of cushion. Reaching out, I pushed her off the sofa onto the floor and lay back down, but rather than being put off, the kitten decided this was an invitation. A few minutes later, there was a rustle under the sofa, and suddenly a whirling dervish of teeth and fur and razor sharp claws launched itself upon me.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" I wailed, leaping up off the couch and sending the cat flying in the opposite direction.

Well, I was up now, despite the hangover pounding in my temples. Through an open door, I could see Alex sitting at the kitchen table, his lips curled around a pen as he worked silently at a newspaper crossword.

"What's a six letter word for hungover?" I ventured, padding over and shuffling in slowly, trying not to provoke the pounding in my head any further.

"Fucked?" laughed Alex, looking up. "Do you want some coffee?"

"What time is it?" I croaked.

Alex looked at his watch, moving over toward the coffeemaker without even waiting for a reply. "Nearly three in the afternoon. I thought you'd still be jet lagged, so I just let you sleep."

"Jet lag and hangover," I sighed. "Bad combination. I'd still be asleep if it wasn't for that psychotic devil that Em calls a kitten."

As if in confirmation of my words, the kitten followed me through into the kitchen, leapt up onto the table and proceeded to sprawl across Alex's newspaper, batting at his pen with open claws. " _Excuse_ me!" protested Alex, ever the Englishman, polite even to pets, lowering his gaze to match the cat's. "Cats do not belong on the table. Return to the floor, please."

I giggled slightly, then winced at the throbbing ache that produced in my temples. "Ow. God, why do I keep drinking tequila?"

"I'm not even going to bother asking you what sort of hangover you have today," laughed Alex.

"I've got the mean, desperate, wants to get its mates and go drinking now," I moaned, flopping down at the table.

"Never mind the coffee, then, I'll make you a vodka and coke. Caffeine and alcohol all in one fell swoop," Alex suggested.

"Make it vodka and coffee and I'll love you forever," I sighed.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," noted Alex, pouring two cups of coffee and placing the bottle of vodka next to them. With an evil grin, I splashed a dash of vodka into mine, then held the bottle teasingly over Alex's cup, raising my eyebrow suggestively. "Oh, go on, then," he blustered, putting his hands on his hips and sticking his chest out.

"So, got anything to eat, Mr. Good Housekeeping?" I probed, much improved by a necessary gulp of the coffee business.

"I'm sure I can whip something up," Alex squawked, twisting his long limbs around one another like a schoolboy, beaming with pride.

Half an hour later, Alex was ensconced in the kitchen with a vegetarian magazine and a baking tray full of goats cheese, a cigarette dangling from his mouth in flagrant defiance of culinary etiquette. 

"What are you making? It smells delicious," I probed.

"Goats cheese en crouette, I believe, if it all turns out properly," he beamed. "I'm not allowed to cook it when Em's around, she's loathes the smell of goats cheese."

"Ooh, I love it," I assured him, sneaking a nibble off one of the corners. "Where is Em, anyway?"

"Visiting a wedding consultant. Whatever it is that wedding consultants do. Picking out napkin colours or something like that," Alex replied with a roll of his eyes.

"She's been working all week, and the one day she's off she's still organising people? You two have to get married, or else you'll never see each other, right?" I teased.

"I'm not complaining," sniffed Alex. "Though let me tell you, I'm looking forward to the honeymoon. Two weeks alone with my wife and no outside distractions, for the first time, in, well... ever. Soo-perb."

Sitting down at the kitchen table, I played distractedly with a floral arrangement Em had set up in a cobalt blue vase, more than slightly disappointed. I had so been looking forward to further dissecting the subject of Damien at great length over a pint of ice cream. Although Alex and I could talk like brother and sister, for hours on end, there were still some things that I needed a girl to girl talk for.

"Oh, quit complaining, it's not like you have to go on tour for the next million years," I moaned, folding my arms and laying my head on top of them.

Alex laughed, depositing a glass of white wine and a little bit of puff pastry on the table in front of me. "Trust me - after last year? I think we have earned our well deserved rest from touring." Sitting down opposite me, he raised his eyebrows expectantly as I took a bite of his experiment. "Besides, you're not going for million years, I thought it was more like six months."

"It will be eight months if we go on to Australia and Japan," I moaned, then put the other half of Alex's crouette in my mouth. "Alex, these are delicious. When did you learn to cook?"

"I've always been a credible cook. We just never stayed in one place long enough for me to show you," he sniffed with all the pride of a trained house-husband. "So what are your plans for this week, then? More R&R in the West End?" he probed, his ears pricking up at the thought of something that would get him out on a bender at the Groucho.

"God, I've got so much still to do, don't I? All my fucking affairs to get in order... I've got to buy some new clothes..."

Alex suppressed a snigger.

"Oh, shut up. You may be content to go onstage in cargo pants and a fuzzy sweater, but I've got to step into Beth's platform boots. And then I've got to get a new bass rig... that old Gallien Kruger was fine for little clubs in Boise, but I need something that will make the floors in fucking arenas shake." I paused for a moment, taking a sip of my wine, then added. "And I have to talk to my solicitor about getting a divorce from Thom."

"It was an actual, legal marriage?" queried Alex, flipping his hair out of his face with a curious expression that made me wonder how much Em had told him.

"Well, I don't exactly know. But hopefully we can prove that it's not."

Alex smiled poignantly. "Well, best to put it behind you. Get yourself one of those sharp, fast-talking New York divorce lawyers and get the entire thing annulled."

"Don't be silly, Alex, annulled is a religious term, not a legal one."

"I would have thought that would appeal to a little papist like you," teased Alex, falling into the familiar, comfortable squabble.

"Oh, hush, pour some more vodka, heathen. This is my second to last night before I go home and I intend on thoroughly enjoying the last few days of my freedom."

"So you _are_ up for a trip down the pub, then?" he suggested.

I smiled, draining my glass and picking up the bottle of wine to refill it, helping myself to another pastry. "Shouldn't you be meeting with wedding consultants or something?"

Alex glanced at his watch and shrugged. "Oh, I've got hours. Just one round. What do you say?"

"It's never _just one round_ with you," I sighed, rolling my eyes.

"I know a fantastic pub in Primrose Hill," he offered. He stopped for a moment, then smiled fiendishly. "It's windy there, but the view's so nice."

"Shut up," I sighed, elbowing him in the ribs and trying unsuccessfully to repress a smile. "Let's go, then."

Half an hour later, we emerged from the Northern Line, blinking in the bright sun of Chalk Farm.

"Come on, if we cut through the park we'll walk up an appetite," he urged, setting off up the slope towards the bridge over the railway line. A few shortcuts down some backstreets lined with lovely old cream-coloured Victorian houses, and we emerged into the back of the park, climbing a short hill.

"That's funny, I remember it as being a lot bigger," I panted as we climbed. "Though everything seems bigger when you're a child, doesn't it?"

Alex looked at me as if I was clearly daft, then veered off toward the crest of the hill. As we trotted over the top, I was suddenly confronted with the view that I remembered, the grass dropping sharply away, Regents Park and the London Zoo in the foreground, and the sweep of the city spreading off into the distance. Sinking down to one of the benches, Alex paused, catching his breath before lighting another cigarette, but I walked forward, staring out across the city.

"It's so different from New York, isn't it?" I observed. "New York is a tiny, thin strip of an island crowded with skyscrapers, but London just goes on and on... rows and rows of low buildings. Look, you can see Nash's colonnades from here!"

Alex burst out laughing. "How could I have forgotten what you are like? Always analysing things. You can't just look at park and say 'what a pretty view' you have to think about the sociological significance of the architecture."

"I'm sorry," I sputtered.

"As if I would complain about that," Alex snorted. "You're just like Damien."

I turned around and wrenched my eyes from the landscape to consider my companion. It felt like being on top of the world up here. With London spread before me like a map, I felt powerful and capable of anything. "You think so?" I smiled lazily, spreading my arms like wings and leaning into the wind that was blowing up off the river. "Come on, I'm starved. Where's this pub you know?"

"At the bottom of the hill."

"Come on, I'll race you! Winner buys the first round!" I giggled, taking off down the grassy slope, slipping and sliding on the damp grass.

Alex was two steps behind me as I hurtled out of the park and down one of the side streets leading into the neighbourhood. "Not fair, you had a head start," he called out, slowing to a crawl as he caught his breath, panting for air.

"Oh, bollocks, you've just ruined your health with those cancer sticks."

Rolling his eyes, he lit another one, then paused. "Hey, come back here - look at this."

"I beat you fair and square, you're just trying to wiggle your way out of it," I laughed, circling around and doubling back toward him.

"No, look," he urged, pointing up at a blue plaque on the wall. "William Butler Yeats lived here. He's one of your lot, isn't he?"

"No, Keats and Yeats are on _your_ side, Wilde is on mine," I giggled,

"I'll see you your Wilde and raise you one André Gide," Alex ventured a debonair shrug.

"And I'll see you your Gide and raise you one Lautremont." Threading my arm through his elbow I pulled him toward the high street. "I'm starving - is this your pub?" Alex nodded proudly. "Well, I'll find seats - you get the drinks. First round's on you, remember?"

Groaning and rolling his eyes, Alex padded his way to the bar, then turned around to squint at me. "What was your drink again?"

"Gin and tonic. How could you forget?" I replied with a mock sulk, punching him in the arm. "Though I don't feel like a gin drunk right now. Just a pint of bitter."

"Just the one, then," laughed Alex, then soon returned, bearing our drinks and a huge basket of chips. He sat for a long minute, staring at me carefully, then took a huge gulp of his beer, licking the foam from his upper lip. We sat for a few minutes, just giggling and making small talk, drinking our lager and picking at our chips.

Then somewhere between the second and third pint, when the world was starting to look at little fuzzy around the edges, Alex narrowed his eyebrows and looked at me seriously. "Look, do you want to talk about anything... About _boys_ for example...?" He was grasping for words; obviously it was incredibly difficult for him to bring up the subject. I wondered if Em had prompted him to bring it up.

I stared down at my feet, my good mood burst like a bubble. "Damien?" Alex nodded slowly, looking a bit relieved that I had filled in the blanks without his having to bring up the indelicate name again. Shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I stared down into my beer, trying to pick through the events of the past few months to formulate some explanation. "I know it just doesn't make any sense. We don't have to talk about this, Alex."

Alex nodded briskly, then reached his hand out, punching me familiarly in the shoulder. "You know that I owe you."

Owe me for what? Was Alex actually expressing remorse for the way that he had walked out on my problems to go running to Em? I took a deep breath, finished my beer, then started on the next, which had appeared at my elbow as if my magic. "Look, things with Damien..." I started to explain, but the look in Alex's eyes stopped me dead. Alex didn't believe the pitiful justifications any more than I did, underneath all my excuses. "I know what you're going to say, so just say it."

"I think that what happened with Thom was the symptom, not the disease," he announced with professional precision, and I winced. Hadn't I once said the same thing, about some other, long forgotten distraction, when I had been involved with Alex? 

"Ouch," I replied, without answering the accusation.

"I think..." Alex took a long drag of his cigarette and gestured for the bartender to bring more drinks. "I think you were scared. I think you were _terrified_ that the shrew was finally going to be tamed and you were going to go gently into the good night of matrimonial comfort. I think that you wanted to prove to yourself that you were what everyone had said you were - that you were incapable of being faithful, incapable of being in a successful relationship - incapable of being happy, really." He raised his eyebrows then batted his eyelids in his typical gesture of saying something profound.

I sat in silence, not replying, but simply digesting what he had said. I'd said as much to Em the previous night, but it sounded different when it came from someone else's mouth, especially someone that I so cared for and respected the opinion of.

When I did not reply, Alex started to look rather worried. "Kate?" Bending forward, he tried to catch my eyes, but I kept them firmly on the bottom of my glass. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have presumed..."

"No, you're right," I confessed. "You're absolutely and completely right, as per usual." In another lifetime, I would have got up and flounced out of the pub in pique and annoyance, but I just sat there, abject and miserable, feeling vaguely sorry for myself.

"So you know it?" Alex was beginning to sound annoyed.

"Yes. I think I've always known it. I'm clinically allergic to happiness," I snapped facetiously.

"So why don't you bloody do something about it?" snarled Alex.

A vicious retort started to form on the end of my tongue, but I bit it down. Why did every discussion of my stupid bloody love life with Alex eventually turn into an argument? "You know, Alex, I'm really sick of talking about me. Let's talk about your love life for a change."

"Let's talk about me, let's talk about me," giggled Alex, and the brooding mood instantly broke. "I'm getting married in two weeks - I don't have an exciting love life anymore. Just completely boring, wonderful, happy domesticity. It's amazing what being truly in love can do to your love life, isn't it?" He paused, a blissful smile spreading over his face. "You know, I do believe it's your turn to buy a round."

"You know, I do believe that you promised me dinner, and it's getting late. I'll get the next round if you get me a plate of those roasted rooty things that I keep seeing going by."

"Roasted rooty things?" Alex made a silly face. "You won't eat my parsnips, but you'll eat unidentified frying objects here?"

"I love your parsnips, baby," I giggled with a raised eyebrow.

"Alright, I'll order lunch," he grumbled, looking at his watch.

"You worry too much," I laughed. "Another drink?"

"Alright, but just the one."

 

Several hours later, we stumbled up the stairs of Alex and Em's flat, giggling like schoolchildren, not quite plastered, but still giddy with the dizzy buzz of really good bitter. As Alex pushed the door open, I saw the cat sitting on the hall table, its tail lashing back and forth as if she were about to pounce on us. "Oh god, it's the psycho kitty," I giggled, provoking a storm of laughter from Alex.

Suddenly Em appeared in the door, wearing a profoundly pissed off expression. Alex's grin faded from his face, replaced by a look of outright panic. "Oh, fuck..." he hissed from between gritted teeth, his eyes darting subconsciously to the hall clock.

"It's what, 8, only took you 3 hours to remember our date, how impressive," Em drawled, her sarcasm masking her anger.

Looking back and forth between their faces, Em's furious and indignant, and Alex's, guilty but defiant, I shrank back.

"Emmie, I'm sorry. It just slipped my mind..." Alex attempted to soothe, trying to wiggle his way out of the argument with his ever present charm.

Em cut him off. "How, Alex? I've only reminded you a thousand times."

Alex turned away from her, his eyebrows knitting together. I knew that look all too well, haughty and bored, rolling his eyes as if the entire conversation were beneath him. If he had been smoking, he would have blown a single, contemptuous smoke ring. "I'm sure you took care of all the details, just like you always do," he breezed airily.

Abruptly, a paperback book went hurtling through the air, barely missing Alex's ear. I turned, startled. Had Em actually just thrown it at her fiancé? Selfishly, my first thought was actually one of relief. I wasn't entirely sure why I felt somewhat vindicated by the idea that I was not the only woman that Alex had claimed to love and then treated badly. But almost immediately that sensation was replaced by an almost palpable sense of guilt. It was me that Alex had been avoiding his responsibilities for.

"Fuck you," snarled Em, her eyes flashing. "I asked for one fucking thing from you, and you're too busy with Kate to even spare a thought for our impending nuptials."

"I never asked for a cast of thousands," Alex tossed back, his voice unnaturally quiet. It was his most infuriating tendency - he never raised his voice during an argument. It was his way of keeping control of the situation. If you wanted to hear what he had to say, you had to lower your own voice.

Em opened her mouth as if she were going to scream at him, but as her gaze swept over me, her eyes narrowed in anger, and she closed her mouth, then whirled around and stormed from the room. A few moments later, there was the sound of the bedroom door being slammed shut.

Alex remained quiet, walking over to the liquor cabinet and pouring himself a glass of whisky.

"Alex, you were supposed to be at that meeting with the wedding consultant, weren't you?" I probed, trying unsuccessfully to keep the guilt and the anger out of my voice. How could he put me in the middle of a situation like this? Hell, how could he do this to Em? I'd _asked_ him if he had other plans with Em. At least I thought I had. Had I? In retrospect, I wasn't so sure. Had I been that selfish, having Alex's undivided attention to myself?

"No," Alex insisted, though the waver in his voice made me know that it wasn't the entire truth. I stared at him until he wriggled guiltily, adding, "We were supposed to get together for a romantic dinner at the Savoy, though, to choose the menu and the wine for the reception."

"You little shit!" I exploded at him, tempted to pick the paperback off the floor and finish the assault that Em had abandoned.

"I _forgot_!" Alex protested. "We were only supposed to go to the pub for one round, it just..."

"Bollocks, Alex." I paused, eyeing him carefully. God, this was my fault, wasn't it? A few days ago, the two of them had been the perfect vision of couplehood. "You were dying for an excuse to go out so you could forget it on purpose, weren't you?"

"I was not," he protested lamely, but I could see straight through the lie.

"Alex, don't fucking do this," I snarled. "Don't try to put me in the middle like this. You're fucking using me as an excuse to avoid your problems with Em. I've spent a long time trying to build up a friendship with her, and I'm not having you destroy it by playing these jealousy games. Why are you doing this to Em? Are you determined to screw up this wedding?"

"I'm not doing anything to Em," Alex snorted defensively.

"Exactly the problem! Are you so secure in this relationship that you think you can just ignore it? If there's one thing I've learned from this whole fucking mess with Damien, it's that you should never take anyone for granted, no matter how much you think they love you."

That stopped Alex in his tracks, as he turned around and stabbed his cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. "I don't take her for granted. And I do love her. You know that. It's just all this, this _wedding_ crap." He paused. "I want to be married to Em, but do we have to go through all this... colour consultants, caterers, guest lists, seating charts, wedding dress fittings, tuxedo rentals, halls... it just never fucking ends. Fucking napkin colours... do I look like I give a fuck about what colour the designer fucking napkins on the catered fucking tablecloths are? You know, I think you and Eboracum had the right idea, just a quickie in Vegas." He paused, "Do you think I can persuade Em to just run off to Gretna Green?"

I glared at Alex. It was bad enough that I could not remember my wedding, but just knowing that it had been in Las Vegas was almost more that I could bear. "Alex, this sort of thing matters to girls." I sighed. "Almost every girl, from the time they are little, has this image of what their wedding is going to be like - the dress, the flowers, the reception. It's just one of those things little girls dream about that they finally get to do when they are big girls."

"And the groom is just some accessory they slot in at the last minute," quipped Alex sarcastically. "What about you? You're the most un-girly girl I know. I can hardly picture you playing dress up with your mum's wedding gown."

I turned away, my face darkening. No, I wasn't going to be drawn into this discussion - Alex was playing his usual bait and switch game, trying to distract me from his faults by talking about mine. "How much does Em put up with without so much as a word's complaint? How many months have you been on tour this year? How many dull and boring awards ceremonies has she sat through for you? Has many backstage aftershow parties has she suffered through? And you can't be enough of a gentleman to choose some wines for your fucking wedding?"

Alex remained sulkily silent.

"You're being an arse, Alex. You owe Em an apology."

Unable to even look at me, Alex slunk away guiltily, leaving me alone in the sitting room. I stared at the bottle of scotch still open on the counter. It was that time of the evening when I had to make the choice - sober up after dinner or keep on drinking on a championship bender. Picking up a glass, I was about to pour myself a wee dram when I heard the door slam upstairs.

"God fucking forbid you should have a thought of your own," Em's voice floated irately across the apartment, making me cringe. Oh god, don't tell me that he told Em that I was making him apologise. She already thought that I exerted far too much influence, indirectly or otherwise, over Alex's actions.

"Know what I hate about Kate, Alex?" Em exploded. "I hate the way you act when you're around her, like everything we've worked so hard on this relationship is boring and meaningless."

I cringed, wishing that the ground would open up and swallow me whole. This was what I had wanted to avoid by going home, before Alex had talked me out of it with his mad ideas with my still being in love with Damien. That was what I'd come back here for, not to cause conflict between Em and Alex - which was the last thing I'd wanted to do.

Gathering my coat and my bag together, I sifted through my pockets for a train fare's worth of pocket change, then let myself out quietly and slipped down the stairs.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate Gordon goes back to Damien's loft to get her things. And ends up getting way more than she bargained for.

It seemed like less and less of a good idea, the closer I got to the London Bridge tube station. If I had been sober, I never would have even thought about it, but as I climbed up the stairs and walked the short blocks toward Tower Bridge, the buzz was wearing off, and I was losing my nerve. The light was on - he was definitely home. So much for slipping in without speaking to him. But on the other hand, that was what I'd been secretly hoping for, wasn't it?

But what if he wasn't alone? I pushed the key in the lock, almost surprised that it still worked, then wavered at the bottom of the stairs, peering up into the gloom of the stairway. How many times had we stumbled up those stairs together, pawing at each other in our haste to get into bed? We'd fought on these stairs, too, Damien refusing to pay any mind to my paranoid fantasies. Taking a deep breath, I closed the door behind me with a warning slam to let him know that he would soon have company, in case he was not alone, then climbed the stairs.

I saw the light on in the studio, so I poked my head in, half expecting him to have some other woman laid out on the table completely naked and smeared with paint. But there was Damien, alone, leaning back in his old office swivel chair. I never quite knew how he managed to push the chair back so far without ever toppling, balancing himself by hunching over the sheaf of paper on which he scribbled furiously.

For a long time, I simply stood there, watching him work, so caught up in his sketching that he had not even noticed me. So instead, I just bided my time, studying every tiny detail of his face, remembering all of the familiar things that I loved about him. The whorl on the back of his head that all his hair spread out from, the touch of grey above his ear, the set line of his eyebrows, with that single wrinkle of deep contemplation between them. A light beard - that was new, not just a few days worth of stubble, but a full goatee curled around his thin lips.

His face was so familiar that I could see it in my sleep, but it wasn't until I saw him that I realised how much I adored it. Strange how love could do that to you. I could barely remember the first time I ever saw him, he had left such a little impression on my libido at the time, but now the mere sight of him made my pulse quicken and my face flush. What would he do if I walked over and simply wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing the top of his head the way I used to when I called him up to dinner?

I wanted to, desperately, but my feet, terrified, would not move towards him. Licking my lips, I opened my mouth and forced myself to speak. "Damien?"

In one instant I knew everything I ever needed to know. He looked up, startled, but as soon as he saw me, his face broke into an unmistakable smile of adoration. After a few seconds of shock, his face darkened, as he forced himself into a scowl, but I could tell. He was angry, he was hurt and betrayed and his pride was bruised, but under it all, he was still very much in love.

"What are you doing here?" he growled, without bothering to stand up. He didn't know where to look, obviously not wanting to look at me, but unable to look away.

"I left some clothes here, I came to pick them up," I lied, suddenly wondering the same thing myself. What _was_ I doing here? He looked tired, his eyes ringed with dark circles, and his lightly bearded face was puffy and swollen, as if he were gaining weight from drinking, but my heart still caught in my throat when I saw him. It took every ounce of restraint not to run over and throw my arms around his neck, showering his face with kisses of apology.

"They're upstairs. You know where," he replied in a dry, barely contained voice.

They were still in the closet? If it had been me, I would have stuffed them all in a box and shoved them down in the garage, or even better, had them burned.

"What the hell have you done to your hair?" he demanded, sitting up as if suddenly noticing. Then again, he hadn't seen me in the light before. Or sober, come to think of it.

"I dyed it," I replied, touching it self consciously. "Do you not like it?"

"I hate it."

"Yeah, well, I hate the goatee," I tossed back.

"Touché." Damien stroked his beard thoughtfully, but he was smiling wistfully.

I stood, watching him, disinclined to even move away from him. Simply to be near him seemed like an accomplishment. My head was swelling with things that I wanted to say, but none of them came close to what I felt.

"Are you going to go and get your clothes, or are you just going to stand there and stare at me all night?" Damien growled, though I could not tell if it was intended in malice or simply in observation. "Because I have work to do."

"I..." I stumbled over my words. If that was a choice, I knew which I would choose, though I would have preferred a nice perch on one of the stools. If I asked him to come upstairs with me, would he go? If I walked into the bedroom with him, would instinct take over? Was that all I wanted from him? _Hell no_. But was that all it would take? That was how the relationship had started; I'd just kept sleeping with him until I found myself head over heels in love. Then again, he had known what he was doing, in retrospect, while I'd never had a clue.

"Have you forgotten where it is?" Damien drawled sarcastically. "Do you need me to show you the way?"

"I'm..." I stuttered pathetically. _I'm sorry. I love you. Can I come home?_ "No, it's OK." Turning around, I dragged my eyes away from his face and fled away up the stairs.

The loft was exactly as I remembered it, Messy and disordered, but too large and spacious to actually be cluttered, despite the piles of rubbish that Damien and I had accumulated. Around a corner, the bedroom... Damien had even kept the huge sails of paisley silk in place above the bed where I'd left them. Turning around, I shot a guilty glance towards the door to make sure that he had not followed me, then padded over and perched on the side of the bed. How many times had I woken up in this bed, my face pressed between Damien's shoulder blades, my arm wrapped tightly around his waist? 

Leaning backwards, I buried my face in the sheets. He rarely washed them, which had appalled me at first, but I had grown to love the way they smelled slightly of him. Curling up in a ball, I wormed my way under the bedclothes, pulling the blankets up over my head as if I could simply deny the past few months simply by blotting out the sight of them.

I wasn't sure how long I had been lying there - it only felt like a few minutes - when I suddenly felt the bed shift, as if someone had sat down upon it. "What the hell are you doing in my bed?" Damien's voice demanded as he pulled the covers back.

 _My bed._ It has been _our_ bed once. I couldn't answer, merely looking up at him with huge, liquid eyes. Instead, I moved closer, not saying a word, but running one finger down the outside seam of his jeans.

"No, stop it. Cut it out," he retorted, batting my hand away. "Are you drunk?"

I shrugged. "A little."

"You didn't come here for clothes, did you?"

I shrugged again, but did not reply, lying back, my mouth half open and my eyes half shut, licking my lips slowly as I twirled a strand of hair between two fingers.

"What do you want?" Damien snarled, beginning to grow more than slightly annoyed, though I could tell that the cheap trick was working, and he was definitely aroused. Some habits died hard.

"I would have thought that was obvious."

"And what do you think that would prove?" Damien snapped, standing up abruptly and whirling around, pacing over to the bed table and picking up his cigarettes, then pacing back, turning one end over end in his fingers before lighting it. "What _are_ you trying to prove? What are you even _doing_ here? You're supposed to be with someone else, remember? Hell, you're supposed to be _married_ to someone else!"

I could not reply, rolling away from him and staring at the wall.

"Answer me, dammit!" he growled, his voice raising into anger. Throwing himself down into a chair, he sucked at his cigarette, then stabbed it out in an ashtray. "Go on, scream, yell if you want, call me an arsehole, tell me that's why you left me, tell me why it's all my fault. Shout and throw a packet of accusations around, I know how to handle _that_."

Curling up in a ball, I clenched my eyes tight shut to try and stem the flow of tears that were welling up uncontrollably. How could he possibly think that this was his fault? I would apologise if I even knew how, but every time I tried to formulate words, something stopped them from coming out.

"I hate it when you pull this silent treatment. Tell me what the hell is going on!" He paused, and I could hear the anger building to a head, then subsiding. "You're not crying, are you? Oh, please, spare me this whole performance again."

"I told you... I'm not trying to be manipulative," I finally stuttered. "I'm crying... I'm crying because I'm scared and confused and hurting and I don't know what to say or how to make this right."

"Oh, that's a first," sneered Damien, then something in my aspect stopped him, as if he realised that I was actually being serious. Sitting down beside me, he reached out a tentative hand and laid it neutrally on my shoulder, then removed it just as quickly. "Oh, Kate, what happened?" he finally asked, in a controlled voice, pulling out another cigarette, lighting it and sucking on it as if he could draw physical strength along with the smoke.

"What, with Thom? It was never even supposed to happen in the first place..." I tried to explain.

"No! What happened between _us_? I don't care about Thom fucking Eboracum - if it hadn't been him it would have been someone else, wouldn't it? It has nothing to do with Thom fucking Eboracum - it's between you and me. What did I do wrong, Kate? What did I not do? Did I not give you everything that you needed? Was I not patient enough with you? Was I too patient? Did I not spend enough time with you? Did I crowd you by being around you all the time? Did I bully you into the engagement? Did I push you into more than you were ready for? Was this your way of telling me that I asked too much of you? Cause I really don't have a fucking clue what went wrong."

"Damien, shut up, you don't know... it's not you, it's..."

"It's _what?!_ "

I paused, trying to put sense into the preceding months of my life. Was he right? Had it not even been about Thom at all, but about my fear of being trapped, my fear of actually falling in love?

"Damien, don't ask me this. I didn't come here to fight with you, I didn't come here for an argument, or accusations or recriminations."

"What did you come here for, then? That's what I keep asking you! Why can't you just leave me alone, to get over you?" 

I paused. The pitiful excuse of my missing clothes had seemed flimsy, even at the time. "I just wanted to see you. I wanted..." I choked on the words. I wanted his touch on my skin, his arms around my waist, wanted his kiss, wanted his body pressed against mine, wanted his legs between my thighs. How would he react to my simply saying, _I don't want you to get over me. I want you to fuck me, OK?_

I could just imagine Damien bursting out laughing and guffawing, shaking his head as he slumped in his chair. _Not a fucking chance in hell!_

"Never mind," I sighed, rolling over and climbing out of bed, climbing out of the cosy little fantasy and back into the chilly air of my fucked up life. This loft was freezing in the winter - how could I have forgotten that? Then again, Damien and I had not actually started dating until the spring, had we?

"No, I will _not_ never mind," snapped Damien. Just when I thought he would burst out laughing, taking everything in his stride, the way he always did, he swung from sulking accusations to outright anger. "You can't just come here like this and shake up my head all over again, and offer no explanation. I mean, how can you go from being in love with me one week, to married to someone else the next? How can you _do_ that to me?"

"Damien, I..." _I do love you._

"You what?" His eyes were piercing, as if he were searching for something.

"I told you, I told you back in New Orleans, I told you again in Memphis, or wherever the hell we were..."

"You told me what? That you loved me? While you were probably lying in bed with another man? Jesus Christ, Kate! Do you even know what that means? Did you tell _him_ that you loved him?"

Did I? At this point, I could no longer even remember. Had I? I had, but I hadn't believed it. Thom had just been so... " _I had no choice,"_ I finally sobbed.

Damien stared at me as if I were below contempt. "You had no choice, it's everyone's fault but your own? That again?" he sneered. "It's always someone else's fault, and if you can't find someone else to blame, then you were just _caught up in the moment, swept away by desire_ , is that it?"

"No." _I didn't mean it. I didn't love him._ The word sounded dead in my throat, utterly inadequate. "This is pointless, Damien. I made a mistake. What do you want to do, just keep screaming at me about it until the end of time?"

"You came here, I didn't force you to come."

"I..." I closed my eyes, but the words would not come. _I still love you, you know. I never stopped..._ "It was not what you think, with Thom. It got out of control. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I wasn't in love with him, Damien. It was one little mistake, one drunken mistake in a field near Oxford, that just set off this chain of events that I could no longer control, and then..."

Slowly, sarcastically, Damien started to clap. It was such a familiar gesture, he did it all the time when he thought I was being a drama queen, and it never failed to infuriate me. "Again with the _one little mistake, losing control, swept away by desire_ ," he parroted, waving his hands about in the air melodramatically. "You've got the perfect excuse for everything, don't you? Girl with the silver tongue, born performer, drama queen." He whirled around and fixed me with a furious stare. "Everybody else may buy it, but to me it just sounds like another one of your saccharine top forty torch songs."

Throwing up my hands, I flew at him, my claws bared, wanting to scratch his eyes out. "Shut up, I am trying to explain," I sobbed. "You weren't there, you don't know what it was like. Be realistic!"

Damien caught me, his reflexes lightning fast, grabbing me around the wrists. "Be realistic? You keep talking utter gobshite about being caught up and swept away by desire. Love is realistic. Desire is... it's fucking unrealistic, Kate. It's easier to blindfold yourself, isn't it? It's easier to change your boyfriend every six months and not look in the mirror than it is to live with someone forever and weather the changes."

Shaking his hands off me, I stepped backwards, my lower lip shaking, in rage, or shame or both, I couldn't tell. "Damien, you do not understand," I threw back at him, simply repeating the words over and over because I could not articulate the whirlwind coursing through my head.

"I think that I understand entirely too well, Kate. Anytime anyone gets this close to you, it scares the hell out of you, doesn't it?"

Every nerve in my body screamed at me to turn around and run, to walk out of the house and walk out of his life, but I forced myself to stand my ground. "That's what Alex said this afternoon." I swallowed loudly, shifted my weight from foot to foot. "It hurt because I think it might be the truth. Damien, I'm _scared_." I paused, waiting for him to crush me with another sarcastic remark. "I could walk out of here... I probably should just go, and leave you to get on with your life, in fact, every instinct tells me that I should get the fuck out - but you know what? When it comes to love, my instincts are always _wrong_."

Still, he didn't reply, gnawing on the edge of an already ragged fingernail.

"OK," I finally conceded. "Do you want me to go?"

For a long time, he didn't answer, and I had no idea whether to interpret that as a request to leave or an admission that he didn't mind if I stayed. But finally he shrugged, then raised his arms behind his head, cracking his knuckles loudly. "No." Another long pause. "I don't _want_ you to go. See, my brain, and every rational thought in my head is saying to kick you the hell out. But my instincts tell me to let you stay. And my instincts are _never_ wrong."

"Look, I..." My mouth was so dry I couldn't speak, though whether from nervousness or the beer I'd swallowed earlier, I couldn't tell. "Look, do you want a cup of tea?"

It was a simple enough gesture, but it somehow calmed Damien. He relaxed slightly, shrugged. "Suit yourself. I have no idea where the kettle has gone, though." The electric kettle _I_ had bought him for emergency situations when the restaurant downstairs was closed. He paused as I padded through into the kitchen, wincing at the mess which had accumulated there in my absence. I dug under a pile of plates at the back of one of the cabinets and finally produced it. "Oh. So that's where it got to."

There was silence for a few minutes as I busied myself with the familiar routine, then handed Damien a cup of strong PG Tips. I didn't even have to ask how he took it - white, two sugars - I still remembered. Finally, after I had taken a gulp of caffeine, and felt the returning hangover in my forehead recede slightly, I took a deep breath and launched into the speech that I had found myself unable to prepare on the tube ride over.

"Look, Damien. I am here because I owe you an apology."

"Oh, please, it's a bit late for..." interrupted Damien gruffly, but I cut him off.

"No! Let me finish! I owe you a hell of a lot more than an apology, but an apology is all that I know how to give you, because I can't wind back time and make all of it have never happened."

Damien quieted down, merely looking at his feet with a surly expression, his legs hanging down off the stool and kicking impetuously against the rungs like an unruly pupil confined to a corner.

"I know that I can't make it better. I screwed up and I know that I screwed up. And I have to live with that for the rest of my life. But what hurts me most of all is not what I've done. It's not even the fact that I've hurt you, though believe me, that breaks my fucking heart. It's the fact that you blame _yourself_ for it all." 

I paused, letting that sink in, but Damien did not answer me, sipping at his tea and kicking his rungs as if those were the only two activities on earth.

"If there's anyone to blame for this, it's me, and it's Thom Eboracum. And that's it. You..." The tears were threatening to rise up and choke my new found articulation, but I forced myself to continue. "You were _so_ good to me. You were so kind, so patient, so understanding, you treated me with love, and respect, and even humour, when I took myself too seriously. You gave me everything that I needed, not just physically, but emotionally, and intellectually, often when I didn't even know that I needed it. If there was _anything_ wrong at all with what you did, it was simply that you treated me better than I thought I deserved to be treated." 

I took a deep breath, wiping the tears from eyes and suppressing a sniffle; I had always hated the way my nose ran when I started to cry. "It's a cliché because it's so fucking true. I didn't even realise what an amazing thing we had until I lost it all. That is all that I wanted to say to you yesterday, and that is why I did not want to fight. Because we have nothing to fight about. I have nothing to say to defend myself. I was wrong and I am more sorry than you will ever know, because I'm still desperately, terrifyingly, dizzyingly in love with you. I know you don't believe me, but I never stopped."

When I stopped speaking, the kitchen was completely quiet except for the muffled sounds of boats echoing up from the river below us. I stared desperately at Damien, and Damien stared resolutely at the floor. When he did not respond, I finally climbed to my feet, walked over to him, kissed the top of his close-cropped head then turned and headed for the door.

"Kate..." Damien's voice, ragged and emotional, stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see him standing, walking slowly over towards me, his eyes confused, but with the light returned to them. "I've known you for what? Nearly two years now?" he ventured, slowly and very carefully. "I've seen you in every fucking mood, from filthy to euphoric, and I've studied your voice and your eyes and your very gestures like they were clues to the mystery of the universe that is your nature and your personality."

"And what do you think is the answer?" I asked, desperately searching his eyes for the answer, not just to my question but to our entire situation.

He shrugged, but did not answer. And then his face loomed closer, as he leaned forward, and pressed his lips against mine. For a moment, I simply stood, shocked, not sure what was happening, then I returned the kiss, letting my mouth slip open, letting his tongue slide into my mouth, thick with cigarette smoke and tea, feeling every hair on the back of my neck stand straight up with the electricity of his touch.

Finally, he drew away, leaving me reeling, shaking his head slowly. "I can't do this, Kate."

"Can't do what?" I begged. "Forgive me? You still love me, don't you?"

He turned away, scratching the unruly fuzz of his hair. "You're about to go off on another major, months long tour of the fucking States, playing stadiums every night for thousands of hormonally ripe teenage boys..."

"Not quite, Damien," I giggled, amused at the thought. If memory served, most of our fans seemed to be troubled teenage girls and randy middle-aged journalists. I should be so lucky to face 2,000 17-year-old Thom Eboracum lookalikes in the audience every night.

"Well, that's not the point. The point is, after what happened the last time you disappeared into the wilds of America or wherever, I don't know if I can trust you. I don't know that I can believe you ever again." The words just hung in the air, like prison bars or a barbed wire fence strung between us. How could I argue with that?

"Look, I won't make any promises that I'm afraid that I can't keep," I stuttered, terrified, yet trying desperately to be honest. I just did not want to hurt him any more. What had I said to Tristram about self fulfilling prophesies? I didn't trust myself. How could he trust me if I didn't even trust myself? "OK, fine. That's fair. You have every right not to trust me. I can't change what happened, Damien. I know I can't. But I can change myself. I came back. Of my own free will, I came back. And no matter what happens, I will always come back to you."

Damien turned away, clasping his hands together over the top of his head, the blades of his broad shoulders rippling under his shirt. Fighting the urge to go over and push my hands up under the fabric to knead the muscles of his back, I slipped subconsciously into my usual spot at the kitchen table. _Was that too presumptuous?_ I wondered with a stab of nostalgia as Damien turned around, and started slightly at the sight of my sitting there so calmly, a sight he'd seen a hundred times, when he finally stumbled from bed to find me sitting there, reading a magazine or chatting on the phone.

"Maybe I should go..." I stuttered.

Damien tried desperately to harden his face, but I could see the emotion leaking through. "I... I..." Finally, he forced his mouth to move. "I don't want you to leave," he confessed. "But I don't want you to stay under false pretences..." He shook his head slowly. " I can't promise you anything, I just don't want to be without you right now."

 

Waking, for the first time in months, in my own bed, my first sense was simply one of deep peace. I didn't even want to think about the circumstances under which I had got here, I just wanted to lie forever in the early morning sunlight, my arm thrown casually around Damien's waist, my knees pressed against the backs of his thighs, my face buried in that perfect space between his shoulder blades. 

Damien stirred slightly, encountering my hand resting gently on his belly, and I started to panic. What had happened? Had he been drunk the previous night? We'd had a couple of bottles of wine with dinner, talked about old times, talked about future plans - his exhibit, my tour, though we took very great pains not to talk about any future _together_ \- and somewhere in the early hours of the morning, the sparkle in his eyes had turned from nostalgia to desire.

We fit together too well to stay apart too long. I started to get a little bold, letting my hands linger on his skin when I touched him, holding his gaze just a little too long with indiscreet eyes, breath catching in my throat, teeth playing nervously with my lower lip. It was so easy to seduce him; I knew all of his foibles, all of his turn-ons. From the second kiss, as I lifted his hand to my breast and felt his intake of breath as his fingers found my nipple, I knew that we would end up in tangled in a sweaty heap on his bed.

It didn't feel wrong. Although I knew in the back of my mind that I was still legally married to someone else, it seemed so natural to be kneeling astride his bare thighs, my fingernails dug into his shoulders, my breasts dangling tantalisingly in his face, laughing as he tried to catch them in his mouth, feeling my body building slowly towards orgasm. If I closed my eyes and leaned back against Damien's knees, feeling the pressure of his penis against my pubic bone, I could almost pretend that nothing had ever come between us, that the whole ugly affair with Thom and the disastrous marriage had never taken place.

But no, in the harsh light of morning, I realised denial was not going to work. It had all happened, I had smashed up my life, and now it was up to me - it was up to us - to pick up the pieces and put it back together, if we still could.

He shifted slightly, then took my hand in his great paw and hugged it against his chest, sinking back into a deep sleep. I was tempted to simply roll over and join him in slumber, but no, I wanted to enjoy every moment of this, because I was terrified it would not last. Rubbing my nose against the thick skin of his back, I kissed his vertebrae one by one, counting the ribs of his chest. Half of me wished that he would wake up so that he could kiss me back, but the other half of me wanted him to stay asleep forever, so that we would never fight again.

No, he was definitely awake, I could feel the muscles of his back tensing and releasing as he stretched, then he wriggled around in my grasp to face me, his eyes blinking against the light, but clear and unclouded by alcohol.

"Hiya," he greeted with a faint smile. Would it be presumptuous to kiss him? Bloody hell, I was lying naked in his bed - it would hardly be presumptuous. But then again, considering recent history, perhaps it was. I decided to play it safe by kissing him impishly on the tip of the nose. "You alright?" he asked worriedly.

"Wonderful," I replied dreamily, moving my arms up to encircle his neck, moving against him sensually, trying to rekindle the playful lust of the previous night.

He shifted uneasily, as if unsure whether to push me away or not. "Kate..."

I rolled my eyes to disguise my sinking heart. This was where he told me it was all a mistake, he was drunk, he didn't mean to, it meant absolutely nothing. "You don't have to tell me. I know," I sighed, extracting my arms from around him and sitting up. For a moment, I wondered if I should cover myself with the sheet, then decided that I didn't care.

"It's not..." protested Damien. His eyes were cold, but his gaze strayed directly to my breasts. Only a few hours ago, he'd pressed his face between them, muttering something about dying happy if he could be suffocated by them. Then again, a man would say anything with his cock battering desperately for admission to the gates of a woman's thighs.

"I know you. I know what you were going to say. _This doesn't change anything_."

"Well, what do you want me to say? I kept seeing you, I got drunk and I got... nostalgic."

"Is that all?" I probed. "Just nostalgia?"

"Kate..." He flopped back on the bed, rubbing his eyes. "What do you want me to say? I told you that this wasn't going to be... It's not like I dragged you into bed under spurious circumstances. You wanted to as much as I did." He paused. "It's never been the sex that's been a problem between us."

For a moment, I did not reply, staring at him, my lower lip thrust out, then I turned away, picking the nearest article of clothing off the chair and slinging it around my shoulders. It wasn't until I was in the kitchen, putting on a pot of tea, that I realised it was Damien's shirt. I'd often padded about the house wearing his clothes in the past, but the almost instinctual habit seemed unsettling now. Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself with the familiar routine of making tea, filling the electric kettle I'd bought him, switching it on, fishing two cups out of the sink and washing them while the water boiled. 

His favourite mug always cracked me up - a Star Trek mug in the shape of Mr. Spock's head - he always enjoyed the image of drinking the brains. And there was mine, a souvenir of Africa with a horrific looking spider emblazoned upon it. I'd had it since I was a child - how had it ended up in the bottom of Damien's sink?

Suddenly I paused. What the hell was I doing here, playing house like this? I wasn't his wife - I wasn't even his girlfriend any more. I had no right to be doing this. Any second now, Damien was going to come out here, reprimand me and send me home with a spank on my bottom.

"Do you women not know how sexy it is when you wear our clothes or do you do it on purpose?" asked a voice behind me. I jumped, then turned to see Damien studying me from the door.

"Would you prefer I made you breakfast in the nude?" I asked flirtatiously, then grinned. "Don't answer that."

"Since when do you cook so much?" he teased, moving over towards me, peering over my shoulder then slapping me proprietarily on the rump. "Satisfying your hunter gatherer instincts, isn't that what you used to tell me? Gathering tea on the savannahs of Africa, and all that?"

"Tea doesn't grow on the savannahs of Africa, it grows on bushes in India," I corrected, beaming with joy. He was teasing me, flirting with me the way he used to. _We had a chance! Please tell me we had a chance._ "And it has to be carefully cultivated - hunter gatherers don't have time for that. However, I could gather some twigs and some dandelion leaves from the roof and put those in your cup, if you prefer."

"Thank you, no, I'll stick to PG Tips," laughed Damien, pulling his bath robe around him and settling down at the kitchen table.

"You just like them cause the teabags are that weird pyramid shape. I mean, how does that help the flavour?" I played with the bag, dancing it along the counter before throwing it into Spock's brain. "Honestly, who comes up with this stuff? T _he tea bag that works like a teapot_. When did you ever see a triangular teapot?"

"I'll have to get one!" proclaimed Damien, putting his bare feet up on a spare chair. His robe fell open, revealing his knobbly knees and his pale thighs, thinly dusted with wiry dark hair. "I'm sure there are some New Age health benefits to drinking tea from a pyramidal teapot."

"Orgone powered tea! Forget art - there's your new career. New Age junk food," I threw back.

"Tea's not junk food!" Damien howled. "Look - it contains healthy anti-oxidants," he pointed out. "It says right here on the box." He paused, squinting at the small type. "What do you think Wilhelm Reich would have had to say about Anti-Oxidants? A few decades later, and people are still willing to believe any sort of pharmaceutical gobbledegook if it sounds pseudo-scientific enough."

I poured in milk and sugar and deposited it in front of him, settling down opposite him in my usual place at the table. This morning routine was so comfortable, so familiar it almost hurt to realise that it was just an illusion.

"Opium is the religion of the masses," I flipped back, but there was a waver in my voice and my smile was bittersweet. Damien looked up at me with an unmistakable grin. _God, I missed him._

"Actually, Marx was wrong. Sex is the opium of the masses," he sighed gently. The look in his eye was almost palpable, not just desire, but something else.

"Is that all this was? Sex?" I asked, looking up at him, my eyes huge and moist.

"No," he answered, without even thinking about it. I moved forward, reaching out and taking his free hand in mine. He tensed, but did not resist, even responding, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb.

"What do you want?" I whispered.

"I... don't know." He hesitated, looking away. "I think I need time. I need to think about this. I need to figure out what the hell is going on. I want..." He seemed to know, but it was almost as if he were physically unable to articulate it. "Look - if, and I mean _if_ , we do this... this needs time. This needs a lot of work, to rebuild trust. This is not something you can just put back together again overnight with a few hours of kinky sex. If we had... months…" His voice trailed off as if he didn't want to say it. He didn't have to say it. We didn't have months right now, or even weeks, to work it out because I was going off on tour for the next half of the year.

"You know that's not possible right now," I sputtered. If he asked me, would I cancel the tour? Would I quit the Charms and walk away if I thought it would bring Damien back to me? I was not sure that was a decision I could make.

"I know." Standing up, he walked away from the table, turning his back to me so I could not see his eyes. "I mean, what do you want to do? Just put things _on hold_ for nearly a year? I can't ask you to do that. You told me last night, you didn't trust yourself..."

"That's not what I meant," I whined, then realised that was the heart of the matter. Trust? How did you rebuild trust? Who did I have to prove myself trustworthy to - Damien or myself? " _On hold_? Is that what you want?"

"I don't know," he insisted.

I stood up and walked over to him, touching him gently on the shoulder. When he did not respond, I took a huge chance, wrapping my arms around his waist, pulling him close and leaning my head on his shoulder, burying my face in his neck, breathing in the strong, musky male scent of him. For a moment, he tensed, then he leaned into the embrace, slowing raising his arms, stroking my hair softly.

"I know what I want," I mumbled into the soft flannel of his bathrobe. "I want to be with you. However long it takes. If it takes ten years, I'll wait for you."

"Are you sure?" he probed, his eyes terrified.

"I've never been more sure about anything in my life." For a moment, I stared directly into his eyes, trying to read the confused emotions whirling behind them. 

Finally he turned away, flopping down at the table. "Get dressed. Go home. I'm sure Alex and Em are mad with worry."

"Can't I stay?" I sighed, my hands curling around his shoulders, fingers digging into his muscles, kneading his back in a circular pattern.

"I have to work," he shrugged, gently taking my hands in his and pushing them off his back. He picked up a cigarette, turning it end over end, then put it down again, picking up a nearby pen and scribbling on a piece of newspaper instead.

"Can I watch you?" I begged, perching on the edge of a chair. "I love to watch you draw."

"I'm not drawing, I'm sketching," he pointed out pettily, cocked his head to one side, as if considering the idea, then shook his head slowly. "No. You're too distracting."

"What are you sketching then?" I probed, trying to play for time. I didn't want to go home. For the first time in ages, I actually felt like I had some sort of connection to Damien again - I felt loathe to let the moment slip away. Leaning forward, I studied the scrap of paper on which he had been scribbling. I pushed his hand away, picked it up and turned it toward me. A woman's nude body, scratched in his thin and tangled lines, a turned up nose and pouting lips just visible under a mass of tangled hair. "Is this me? You've never drawn me before."

"Yes I have," he reminded me. "I've even painted you from inside."

The MRI scans. I'd almost forgotten. It seemed like a million years ago that we'd done them, once upon a time when Damien and I had been madly and perfectly in love. I'd once thought of them as an X-ray of our very love itself. 

He grinned a little boy smile, combing his hair with his chewed fingernails, stretching lazily then leaving his arms above his head, his round face framed by his forearms. Then suddenly, as fast as a cat, he reached out and snatched it away from me, crumpling it and tossing it into the bin. "It's no good."

"What did you do that for?" I sniffed, moving to retrieve it, but he blocked my path with his foot. "What's the matter - afraid it will ruin your aesthetic cred with the spots and drops crowd if you get caught drawing representational figure studies?"

"Hush," he giggled, pulling a mock sad face, but then his expression darkened genuinely. For a long time, he paused, playing with his pen, then he threw it down, looking up at me with a pained face. "You have to go, Kate. You can't stay here. I told you... I'm not ready for this."

I stared at him for a moment, then nodded slowly, standing up and walking to the bedroom. Gathering my clothes, I dressed reluctantly then padded back out to the kitchen, to find Damien still sitting in the same spot at the table, sketching furiously on a pad of paper. "Damien?" He looked up abruptly, his face that strange mixture of radiance and preoccupation he always wore when in the grip of some inspiration. "I love you."

I said it, without being asked, without being prompted, without a reply, and meant it with every ounce of my heart. It wasn't so bad. I might even get used to it.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate Gordon gets back to New York, and resolves to clear out some of the mess of her life before going on tour with Jezebel. And as The Charms join the Jezebel tour, they discover it's unlike any rock'n'roll tour they've ever been on.

Though I was trying very hard to be excited about the tour, inside, I felt oddly empty and hollow. Four days in my apartment - at this rate, it was never going to feel like home. Dropping my suitcase in my kitchen, I dumped the clothes directly from the case into the washing machine, then padded back into the living room to check my ansaphone. Twenty messages? That was absurd; I'd only been gone a few weeks. Maybe less? I'd given up trying to keep track of time. Rolling my eyes, I hit play on the ansaphone then booted up my computer.

"Kate, it's Thom. I don't know if you're back yet, but please call me when you get home..." _Jesus Christ!_ Gritting my teeth, I hit delete and forwarded to the next message. "Kate, it's Thom. Are you..." _Delete_. "Hi, Kate, it's me, are you..." _Delete_. "Kate, _please_ call me..." _Delete_. "Kate, it's Amy. Hope you enjoyed your holiday... how's Ian? Please call me when you get back from London, we've just got a few things to go over. Bye." _Beep_. "Kate, this is Thom again, can you..." I ripped the tape out of the ansaphone and threw it across the room, watching it skid across the coffee table, then sat down on my couch, my head in my hands.

For a moment, I allowed myself to sulk, then forced myself to get up and walk across the room, dialling Amy's number. "Amy... you called...?"

"Kate! You're back. I was beginning to wonder where you'd got to." She paused nervously. "Are you alright?"

"No, not really. I'm feeling a bit shaken up to tell the truth," I confessed.

"Thom?"

I grunted to the affirmative.

"Oh god, he's called here a dozen times. Thank god Gail has had so much practice on the press getting rid of annoying pests. Why don't you just talk to him?"

Rolling my eyes, I leaned back against my couch. "Why, what has he been telling you? That I won't talk to him? Talking to him does no good. He just doesn't want to hear it. It's over and he just can't accept it."

"I suspected as much," sighed Amy. "Is there anything that I can do for you?"

I took a deep breath, remembering her little speech about not getting involved in my personal life. "Amy, I don't want to get you involved..."

"Kate, I said that I wouldn't lie to your lovers for you. But if this man is crossing the line, and harassing you, I have a desire... no, an obligation to protect you, both as a client and as a friend. This guy is scaring me. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if you ask for help..."

"Amy, can you get me a really good divorce lawyer?"

"With pleasure, Kate. With pleasure!"

 

In hindsight, it sounded so simple, all spelled out in clinical terms on big yellow sheets of legal paper. I sat in the offices of midtown Manhattan law firm, feeling ill at ease in my scruffy cords and turtleneck, surrounded by buzzing clerks and lawyers in sharp suits. Years ago, back in our dingy loft in Williamsburg, my former roommate had complained about the law firm in which she'd been a receptionist, but I never believed her cynical hyperbole until today. When I'd sued to preserve custody of Ian, I'd had a friendly and concerned family lawyer with a comfortably tweedy office down in the Murray Hill - I'd been expecting something along the same lines, completely ill prepared for the huge client meeting room with it mahogany table and video conferencing equipment.

"OK, so let's get this straight, Mrs. Eboracum," ventured Mr. Syndrich, putting down his pen and cracking his fingers.

"Ms. Gordon," I corrected.

"If we can get a statement from your witness as to your state at the time you entered into this marriage, we might have grounds for annulment if we can prove that you were rendered incapable of making a judgement due to intoxication." He looked up, tapping his pencil on the desk. "You have a copy of the prescription for the tranquillisers from the doctor, I trust?"

"I could probably get one," I stuttered, remembering the difficulty with which I'd procured a copy for the refill in Georgia or wherever it had been.

"Well, even if we can't prove intoxication, it sounds like we definitely have a case for divorce based on domestic abuse, mental cruelty, emotional duress..." He read off the litany of our sins like a laundry list. "Was there infidelity?" I winced and squirmed in my plush chair. Mr. Syndrich raised an eyebrow and fixed me with a steely blue eye. "Mrs. Eboracum, is there something you're not telling me?"

"Yes," I replied in a tiny voice. "Not Thom, though. Me."

Mr. Syndrich scratched out the last thing he'd written on his notepad. "Who was it?" I bristled, but he insisted. "I'm your lawyer. I don't want any surprises sprung on me either at the bargaining table, or, if it comes to it, in court."

I took a deep breath and plunged into it. "My ex-boyfriend."

"Does he have a name?"

"Damien Hearse." I hadn't wanted to drag him into it. Mr. Syndrich stared at me pointedly with an unmistakable smirk. He was a divorce lawyer with a speciality in the entertainment business, according to Amy - he had to be aware of who Damien was.

"Ah. Is Mr. Eboracum aware of this?" I shook my head slowly. "Well, that's a relief. We won't be saying anything about that, though, as it could hurt the potential settlement."

"Settlement?" I stuttered. "Mr. Syndrich, I don't want a settlement. I just want a divorce as quickly and painlessly as possible."

Mr. Syndrich took off his glasses and laid them down on the table beside his notepad, staring at me coolly and evenly before picking up another sheaf of papers out of his briefcase. "According to these financial statements, Radioshack are among the twenty richest musicians in Great Britain. Thom Eboracum has a personal worth estimated at about £1.5 million, which is what? Over 2 million dollars? He owns at least another million or so in property in and around Oxford, a 20% share of Radioshack's holding company, which is rumoured to be worth a pretty penny - 10 maybe 15 million, divided 5 ways, that's..."

It took a moment for the figures to sink in. Thom, with his scruffy clothes and second hand car, wasn't just rich, but a multi-millionaire? It seemed absurd. Then it dawned across my brain to wonder why the hell my lawyer was telling me this. "So?" I asked blankly, in utter lack of comprehension.

"Mrs. Eboracum, without a pre-nuptial agreement, you are entitled to part of that money as a settlement."

"What?" I snapped. "You think this is about money?" Two million dollars? Half of two million dollars was... a _lot_ more than the gross profit of both Charms albums put together. "No, I don't _want_ any money out of this. I just want a divorce."

"Mrs. Eboracum, you deserve..."

"I was married to the man for about a month, and we've been separated for almost half of it. And stop calling me Mrs. Eboracum! My name is Gordon."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. E... Ms. Gordon. OK, so let me continue. You were only married a month, I assume there are no children?"

"Not by Thom, no," I sighed. Well, thank god for that. I counted the weeks back to the last time we had been together. No, I was definitely not pregnant.

"So we're not talking about a custody battle, then." He sounded almost disappointed, as if he'd been looking forward to the real dirt. 

Suddenly, I was seized with a wild idea. "Do you have any experience with nasty custody battles?"

Mr. Syndrich folded his fingers together and nodded, chuckling slightly as if I'd just cracked an incredibly funny joke. "You're in the entertainment industry, correct?" he probed, looking over his notes, then looking up at me over the top of his glasses. "Does the name Amanda Cabaret mean anything to you?"

Did it mean anything to me? Maddie and I had once thrown darts at her picture during a particularly juvenile mood. However, it was common knowledge that she had won a nasty custody battle against John Tyler of AbSynth. Drawing back, I looked at my lawyer with a bit more wariness. This man was a vicious snake, but perhaps it might be advantageous to have a vicious snake on my snide. "Would you possibly be interested in taking on another case for me?"

Smiling like the cat that ate the canary, Mr. Syndrich pulled another sheaf of paper out of the manila folder in front of him. "Your infant son, Ian. A judge in the Family Court of the Borough of Manhattan awarded sole custody to his biological father, Tristram Thornaby-Gore, due to allegations of pre-natal drug use on your part."

"How did you know that?" I demanded, turning my head to try and catch a glimpse of what else he had in that mysterious folder.

"It's my job to know everything. Actually, it was a rather interesting case in many ways. The judge's decision was completely improper and inappropriate and his ruling on the paternity test set an absolutely unconstitutional precedent. I'd like to take this one to the appeals court, even the Supreme Court, if necessary, and get it overturned." He chuckled slightly. "That would be a nice little gem to have on my C.V."

 _Bastard_! He didn't give a shit about Ian and I, he just wanted to another notch on his belt. My first impulse was to tell him to go to hell, but I held my tongue. "I really don't want to go to court over it. Tristram might still settle, and I'd rather not have to drag my child through another media circus like that."

Mr. Syndrich sulked like a child denied a succulent treat. "Well, we shall contact Mr. Thornaby-Gore and serve papers and see what happens. Meanwhile, we shall file for a legal separation from Mr. Eboracum."

 

I emerged from the meeting with a strange, unclean feeling, as if my entire skin were covered with a greasy film, but at least, for the first time in ages, I felt like I had a plan of action. Set the wheels of my divorce case in action, then disappear off on tour, leaving the lawyers to fight it out while I was practically unreachable. At least, I hoped I was unreachable, and that Thom would not try to do anything as stupid as surprise me on the road again.

Although I had been looking forward to the tour with some degree of trepidation, after a quick rehearsal, I found Emma and Maddie's excitement contagious. We had a new single planned to coincide with the tour, and MVC actually seemed eager to promote _Over_ , giving us an actual budget for advertising, though I couldn't help but wonder if that was Rob Sugarpussy's work more than it was faith in our bankability as artists.

We had decided at the end of the last tour that we were going to alter the live act as little as possible, but obviously, over the past few weeks, that idea had gone out the window, as I found Emma surrounded by a nest of vintage synthesisers and keyboards, the telecaster dangling from her shoulders little more than a vestigial appendage.

"I never had you figured for a synth boffin," I teased, but Emma grinned wickedly and returned my scoffing with a blast of pure electronic noise more harsh and grating than anything she'd ever managed on her guitar.

"Oh, you've got to be joking!" I winced, covering my ears with my hands.

"No, wait, you've got to hear it with the sample track," insisted Maddie. 

I rolled my eyes, but as soon as the music started, I had to admit that she had something. "God, we deserve to have our heads examined doing this three days before a major tour."

"But it sounds good, doesn't it? Doesn't it?" Emma was not going to rest until I admitted it.

"It sounds fucking amazing," I confessed. "But I've got an even better idea. Can you imagine how it would sound if I programmed my bassline into a 303, and then played your guitar riff, up high on my bass? I really loved the way that worked on Codependent Love Song, we could make it all sound like New Order meets 808 State at the Hacienda."

"Oh my god, that is so cheesy, you have to do that," Maddie gasped, fiddling with her rack of sequencers.

"I don't know," frowned Emma. "It's just on that line where it's too old to be cool, but not quite old enough to be retro. It could come off sounding really naff."

"Since when did we ever give a fuck about being cool? Give me cheesy and naff any day, I fucking love it," laughed Maddie, adjusting her headphones to bring the bass synth into the mix.

"How many days do we have before the tour to get our entire set rearranged like this?" I worried, twisting some knobs on the 303.

"It's practically done," assured Emma. As if in direct contradiction of her jaunty words, one of the keyboards fizzled out in a burst of static. "Dammit, I just lost one of my oscillator banks..."

Emma was still fussing with her Moogs the first night of the tour, a screwdriver and soldering iron ready at hand. At least it kept her too busy to worry about the entire scenario we were about to be thrown into. 

On the opening night of the tour, I didn't know whether to be nervous or amused. We still hadn't met our gracious host - we'd arrived late at the venue, and been slid into place like a cog in a well-oiled machine. By the time we were set up and soundchecked, Jezebel had whisked off in a limo to dinner and a press conference, leaving us wandering around the venue, wondering how the hell we were ever going to fill this cavernous aircraft hangar of a conference centre with the stripped-down sound of a three-piece.

"It's not the largest crowd we'll ever have played in front of," Maddie pointed out nervously. "I mean, Glasto was much, much bigger. And it was outdoors, too, which made it scarier."

"That was a festival, that's different," I grumbled. "This is a... a..." I looked around, trying to think how to best describe the venue.

"This is a fookin' stadium, mate!" laughed Emma, picking up her guitar, slinging it over her shoulder and letting rip a pretty fair approximation of the riff from _Sweet Child O' Mine_.

We were still laughing and giggling and joking with one another as we all rolled backstage, until we stopped and gawked at the spread of food laid on outside our dressing room. "Oh my god, is this for us?" I wondered, salivating at the cheese tray.

"I don't know... I mean, what if it's for... _her_ " Maddie was scared to even mention the name of the our host. "We don't want to piss her off by stealing her food."

"Who cares?" shrugged Emma, diving straight into a plate of guacamole. "It's not like she can't afford to order more."

Maddie moved closer, but I looked around, catching the eye of one of the crew. "Who's the food for?" He shrugged and made a unintelligible gesture. "Can we eat it?"

"That's what it's there for. Ms. Jezebel gets a special macrobiotic dinner delivered, so don't worry about that if that's what you're scared of," he informed us in a voice that made it obvious that despite our tough girl acts, our fear was showing through. "You'll learn the rules soon enough. Don't touch any of the food that comes on the brown plates, don't speak to her before a gig unless she asks you a direct question, and whatever you do, do not, ever, use her specially set-aside toilet."

"She has a specially set-aside private toilet?" Maddie asked, her eyes huge.

Emma sniggered into her nachos. "Is that where the brown M&Ms go?"

"Shut up, don't you dare ask questions without being spoken to." The three of us collapsed in giggles that had a lot more to do with our pure terror of the whole set-up than the absurdity of her entourage's rules.

The show went surprisingly well, considering the circumstances. One week of rehearsals, unfamiliar and hastily rented equipment, a completely overhauled set - if any of the kids (and I meant _kids_ as they were fucking young out there) in the audience had been the slightest bit familiar with our material, I might have panicked, but I kept telling myself that they had no idea who we were, so it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference how we played the songs.

There were no major disasters - I flubbed a couple of riffs, and Emma's oscillator banks went a bit off once or twice, but on the whole, it was surprisingly professional. Not that it made the slightest bit of difference to nine tenths of the audience. There was a slight ripple of appreciation through the crowd when we played _Something's Wrong_ , and _Codependent LoveSong_ and even a cheer when we played _Bizarre Love Triangle_ , but apart from that, it was mild disinterest at best.

"It could have been worse; they could have thrown things," I observed as we trooped offstage and regrouped in our dressing room.

"Look, it's a great honour and a great opportunity..." Emma ventured.

"Hey, if even a tenth of those kids remember us, and go out and buy _Over_ , hey that's a guaranteed chart position..." agreed Maddie, though I could hear the disappointment in their voices. It was always liked this, when you opened for a more established band - you started out excited at the very idea, then got cocky, thinking how gratifying it would be to completely blow them off the stage, and then you slowly got worn down by the blunt reality of indifference.

"Are we going to go and watch?" suggested Emma, more excited about the prospect of seeing our headliners than she wanted to let on.

The three of us stood in a gaggle in the wings as we watched the stage stripped, and then prepared for the big show. The musicians were on a riser at the back, with a huge area cleared in front for Jezebel and her troupe of backing dancers. The two minute warning blared, making us all jump, but the crew swarmed around and pulled back from the stage as the dancers took their places, looking like elegant statues in their frock coats and knee-breeches.

All of a sudden, there was a slight bustle, followed by a reverent hush. A woman appeared, crossing the wings wearing an elaborate gold 18th Century costume and a towering wig, flanked on either side by huge men in black suits with earpieces stuck in their ears and suspicious bulges in their jackets.

"Oh my god is that her?" Maddie whispered, in awe. "She's tiny. I always thought she would be about ten foot tall, but she's diminutive! I could probably put my hands all the way around her waist."

"Ssshhh, we're not supposed to talk, remember?" We lapsed into shocked silence as she and her bodyguards trooped by, but just as she came level with us, she looked over, snapped her fan, and winked in our direction.

Maddie practically fainted as Emma wiggled up and down in place. Even I had to admit, I was excited, as the musicians had taken their places and the backing music was starting to pump to a crescendo. All of a sudden, there was silence. For a few moments, the entire auditorium was pitch black, then the curtains swept back as the stage lights came on full blast. In the centre of the stage, surrounded by dancers frozen in the midst of an elaborate minuet, Jezebel slowly lowered her fan, revealing her face. As she shook it closed, the band slammed into action, and the dancers started to writhe. The entire auditorium screamed with one voice, even as Emma and Maddie grabbed hold of each other and started shouting at the top of their lungs. "Oh my god, oh my god, it's _Catwalk_ , I fucking love this song, oh my god..." Completely forgetting themselves, they started to sing along with the lyrics. I tried to hold back, and pretend that I didn't know them, but within a few lines, I had joined in, singing along with thousands of voices.

That first night, it was magical. By a few dates in, we learned the mechanics of the show, the practiced stage patter, the costume changes, the way the dancers traded in and out on the faster numbers, even the staged interactions between the backing musicians. But the first night, we just lost ourselves in the spectacle as Jezebel sang, danced, acted and held 10,000 people in the palm of her hand for nearly three hours. To my surprise, I knew every song, I even knew some of the choreographed dance steps from videos I'd seen a hundred times without even realising. The costumes got smaller and more revealing as her wigs got shinier and the tempo got faster. The colours of the light show amazed me, as she mixed together songs from all over her career, sorted into medleys of moods that went with each costume change's theme, a spangly pink suite followed by a moody purple suite, through to a sad blue suite, then exploding into a dazzling silver suite of pure disco.

The three of us just stared in jealousy. "Oh my god. I feel so inadequate now. I want costume changes to go with each song."

"And fireworks."

"And Marie Antoinette wigs with ships in them."

"And beautiful, half-naked African snake-dancers."

"Oh my god, she's coming back for a second encore... oh holy fucking shit, she's going to do Forgive Yourself. I love this song _so fucking much_!"

"Hang on, is she fucking beckoning to us?"

She was indeed. Standing in the middle of the stage, she broke off from the middle eight to turn to us as the band started vamping. "Yes, you three. Come on up here. I see you dancing." She turned back to the crowd. "I want to see every one of you out there, dancing as hard as these three girls are. All night, I've seen them out the corner of my eye, standing in the wings and dancing their butts off. Come on out. Give it up for our lovely support act... The Charms!"

The whole auditorium started screaming, but then again, by that point, they were going completely mental no matter what Jezebel said. Emma shuffled out, followed by Maddie, while I wasn't sure whether to die of embarrassment or pride. Behind me, the bassist broke into a little solo, and I turned to see her wink at me. Maddie was dancing like a freak, jumping all over the stage, as Emma went over to one of the beautifully sculptured snake dancers, and touched his chest tentatively. He laughed and swept her off her feet, practically throwing her onto his shoulder as he danced around in a circle.

Jezebel moved towards me, and seized me by the wrist, holding me as she raised her microphone. In an instant, the band stopped jamming and slammed straight back into the last verse, just in time for Jezebel to start singing. I stared blankly out into the huge black vastness of the auditorium, completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, frozen with stage fright, unable to move, but Jezebel raised her hand, dragging my wrist up with her. Hearing the familiar words, I started to sing along, then felt sensation slowly start to return to my body and my mind. Relaxing, I pumped my fist in the air along with the beat and started to nod my head, shouting the lyrics of the chorus along with the crowd.

_"Learn to forgive yourself, girl, yeah_   
_Learn to accept your flaws_   
_Forget the father, son and holy ghost_   
_If you can just forgive..."_

(there was a split-second pause which the band seemed to lengthen with every repetition, before the entire auditorium joined in, holding the next note forever)

_"Your-SEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLFFFFFFFF!!!"_

It had always sounded like some silly self help platitude to me, before, but somehow, sung by this tiny, charismatic woman at my side, and repeated back from the mouths of the thousands of teenage girls, queers, and outcasts, misfits and weirdoes, it sounded as powerful as a hymn.

The music ended, my wrist was released, and the stage went pitch black. The curtains closed and dim lights came on, just enough to reveal the dancers and musicians melting away, and the army of crew arriving to start taking down the elaborate sets. I looked around and Jezebel was gone, my bandmates were gone, and the magic had dissolved, but I still felt vaguely high. Stumbling my way back to our dressing room, I pushed my way through the hordes of people and up the stairs before collapsing into our threadbare sofa. My bandmates were equally in similar states of giggling excitement and starstruck hysteria.

"Oh my god, I went onstage with Jezebel. I can die happy now."

"I danced... with a snake-man."

"Oh my god, she touched me. I don't think I'm ever going to wash my wrist again."

"Oh my fucking god, that was so fucking amazing."

"And do you know what the best part is?"

"We get to do it all over again tomorrow!"

We were still shrieking at the top of our lungs as a young man appeared at the door to our dressing room. "Erm... Charms?"

"Yes, that's what it says in big letters on the dressing door," I managed to squeak.

"If you are quite done screaming..." He made a gesture as if he was bringing down the volume on a fader, and we tried to quiet down. "I'm Ms Jezebel's Personal Assistant. She would like to see you now."

Maddie and Emma started shrieking again. "Oh my god, we've got an audience with the Queen of Pop."

"The Empress of Pop!"

"The Supreme Ruler Of The Entire Galaxy Of Pop..."

"Oh my god, I can't wait to tell Carlos..."

"Wait, are we in trouble?" I asked, suddenly worried.

"Don't worry. You're not in any trouble. She always likes to greet new members of the team after a successful opening night of the tour."

As we somehow scrambled to our feet, he read us the riot act as we followed him up the stairs to the higher echelon of dressing rooms. "Look, just a few ground rules. For a start, no screaming."

"Not even a fangirl squeak?"

"None. Whatsoever. Don't crowd her, she doesn't like when people enter within a three foot radius of her. Don't eat any of the food in her dressing room, or drink any of the Evian in the personalised lilac bottles."

"Oh we know the rest of these rules. No farting, no making rude noises, no speaking without being spoken to..."

"And the toilet thing, we've been warned about that, and told not to use the royal throne..."

The officious young PA was not amused as he hissed, "Just remember. Behave as if you were in the presence of royalty."

All he did was ensure that Emma was doubled over with laughter as the three of us trouped in single file into the room. Not entirely sure what to expect, I half wondered if we'd be forced to stand to attention while Jezebel examined us like a visiting dignitary, but a hand appeared from behind a huddle of women in white coats. "Just take a seat wherever you like, I'll be with you in a moment, I'm just having my wig removed..."

Emma and Maddie immediately commandeered the sofa, leaving me to perch awkwardly on a stool. As we watched, an enormous piece of marshmallow coloured hair appeared and was gently removed from the room by a pair of stylists.

"Oh, that's much better." The chair spun around revealing Jezebel, looking incredibly tiny and pale without her stage makeup, dwarfed by a huge fluffy white robe. "So. That was fun, wasn't it." It wasn't even a question, it was more the kind of statement that a teacher would make to a classroom full of expectant students.

Emma was clearly in shock, but Maddie could no longer hold it in. "Oh my god, that was so amazing. I can't believe you played Borderline Personality and all those songs off the first album, and when you invited us on for Forgive Yourself, oh my god, I nearly died, and oh wow, that bit when you started singing Bitch Goddess Mother Whore and you flew up in the air and your skirt trailed down like a peacock tail all purple and blue and green with all the streamers attached to the dancers as they ran out and oh my god I am talking way too much and I can't shut up and you're gonna throw us off the tour now for being total fangirls, aren't you?"

Jezebel laughed dryly, and waved the compliments away, a practiced gesture. "Thank you, I'm very flattered."

"Eeeep," squeaked Maddie.

"Shut up, we were warned, no screaming," growled Emma, smacking her on the leg.

I cleared my throat and attempted to speak. "I'm sorry. We all just very excited. It's such a huge honour to meet you."

Jezebel smiled cautiously. "We've met before, Kate. Do you not remember?"

"We have?" Really? Meeting the single most famous woman in the western world? That was the kind of thing that tended to stick in one's mind.

"In New York. A few years ago, now. You and a certain Mr. Jeremy Kane, both high as proverbial kites, decided it would be a hilarious jape to crash MTV News in Times Square while I was being interviewed?"

"What?" Maddie gasped, turning to gawp at me.

"Are you sure it was me?"

"Quite sure. You and Jeremy were both charming, no mistake. But completely shit-faced." The swear-word was so unexpected, coming out of her perfect mouth, even though she'd made a career out of transgressing boundaries and shocking people.

"I'm so sorry. I have absolutely no memory of this," I protested.

"I'm not surprised, to be honest." Jezebel's laugh at this was the first genuine sounding emotion she'd expressed all night. "Your hair was a different colour, but...." She gestured to her own head.

"Oh yes. That. Bad mistake. Trying to grow it out. Oh yes, and barging onto MTV News while off our faces on acid... well, I assume it was probably acid, but with Jeremy, who knows... I'm sure that was also a mistake... Oh god..."

"It doesn't suit you at all. Completely the wrong colour for your skin. Look, I can get one of my stylists to take a look at it, see if we can lift it out. My colourist, he's an absolute genius. He can do any blonde from Harlow to Bardot. We'll sort you out."

"Thanks. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess since I always had such a thing for red-headed boys, it was like I was trying to steal their power back." Even as I said it, I realised it was an echo of some nonsense Damien had once told me.

Jezebel nodded sagely. "It doesn't always work that way. I always had a theory, that when you had one of those mad crushes on someone, so strong that you couldn't really work out why, it was that they represented something that you actually wanted in yourself. But for some reason, I don't think haircolour comes under the same consideration."

"I dunno. Jeremy had red hair... but I don't think there was anything about his life that I actually wanted. Thom, on the other hand."

Waving her hand dismissively, Jezebel snorted "That _groupie_."

"What, me?" As much as it prickled, it was probably fair.

"No, him. He is forever sniffing around successful female musicians, have you not noticed? He's tried to have little flings - sorry, I mean, ' _performed duets with'_ every really critically acclaimed woman in the music scene... JB Stone, Ana from Chemistry, Sandy P of Xandrine Dream - he got in touch with my management a few years ago, wanting to know if I would do a track with him, but I had them slap it down. I can smell a groupie from a mile away."

"He's not a groupie," I protested. "He's a fucking rock star, why would he need to..."

"Don't ever think that those two things can not be mutually synonymous. Don't make the same mistakes that I did, girls. Listen to me - Kate, Maddie, Emma, just because a man is also a celebrity, or even more famous than you are - don't ever think that means that he _can't_ be a groupie."

"Do you think you can write that on a postcard and send it to Beth?" burped Emma. "Because she needs that lesson even more than Kate does."

"You give me her address and I will do exactly that."

This was fucking surreal. I was sitting backstage in a stadium, discussing my love life with Jezebel. Since when was this my life? I could not wait to tell Damien, he would laugh himself sick over it. But at the thought of Damien, my face fell. Was Damien just a groupie? No. Not at all. He was the one man who had ever treated me as if the whole musician thing just didn't matter at all.

Jezebel looked suddenly concerned, cocking her head to study me. "Are you alright?"

"Don't mind her, she's just coming down from her ketamine high," Emma cackled.

An alarmed expression crossed our hostess' face as her voice became sharp and no nonsense and she drew back from us quickly. "Look, I have to warn you gals. I'll have none of that on this tour. We are a family operation, we run a clean ship. I understand that musicians and artists like to party a little, but if there are any problems with my employees, we stage an early intervention..."

"I'm fine," I insisted, bristling at the description of us as employees, though it did feel oddly like a job interview. "That's just Emma's sense of humour. I'm clean now. You can give me a drugs test if you like."

Almost instantly, she was all concerned face and friendly voice again. "How's your blood sugar? Have you eaten?" she clucked like a mother hen.

"Not since this afternoon."

"Oh for gods sake, eat something. Here, have some tabbouleh. There's organic pita bread here somewhere..."

"I couldn't possibly..." I stuttered, remembering the long litany of prohibitions.

"Don't be ridiculous. They always bring me far too much for one person to eat. Help yourselves, all of you, eat, eat." She got up and brought over a tray of salads, urging all of us to dig in. "You lot are even more picky than my daughter."

We weren't picky, we were just terrified that any minute the fierce young PA was going to reappear and slap our hands, but slowly, we started to dig in. The catering, I had to admit, was extraordinarily good, way better than anything even Slur had managed to get their hands on.

Scanning our faces, Jezebel looked around with a pleased expression. "Well, isn't this cosy. This tour is going to be fun, I can tell already." Maddie and Emma exchanged expressions, then both started to giggle. "What is it? What's so funny?"

"Cosy isn't quite the word I'd use," Emma managed to squeak. "More like utterly surreal." The rest of us broke into nervous giggles, then finally exploded in open laughter.

"You will be used to it in no time, I promise," Jezebel soothed, a placid smile spreading across her face. "We just want you to feel part of the Jezebel family. Now it's been an exciting day, but I think we should all get an early night. Wake-up call is at 10 tomorrow, but you're welcome to join me at 9 for yoga."

"Yoga," I repeatedly dumbly. This was the weirdest tour I had ever been on my life.

But Maddie looked up at Jezebel with something approaching hero worship. "Oh my god, I wish I'd known, I would have brought my mat. Yoga sessions. This is going to be so awesome."


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Charms find that touring with Jezebel is very different, and much more _civilised_ experience than any rock'n'roll tour they've ever been on.
> 
> And as Kate Gordon pines over full colour glossy magazine photos and interviews with her ex Damien, Jezebel concocts a plan to get the two back together.

I could not quite bring myself to go to Yoga classes first thing in the morning, though Maddie and Emma both disappeared off to the spa at the top of the hotel as soon as the sun was up. But even despite the yoga sessions, by breakfast it was obvious that this was the furthest thing possible from the usual rock'n'roll debauchery. For a start, there were children at the breakfast table - many of the musicians in Jezebel's famous all-female band had brought boyfriends, partners and their whole families on tour with them. I was really not sure I was ready for this, especially as Jezebel smiled and waved when she saw me.

"Over here! Come on, we saved a seat for you." I noticed that she had already conscripted my bandmates, as if for the popular clique in high school. "I want you to meet my daughter, Guadeloupe. Or Lupa, as we call her. She's a big fan."

I stared into the expectant face of the most stylishly dressed nine year old I'd ever seen. "I didn't see you at the show last night."

"I'm not allowed, it's past my bedtime."

"The kids sleep on the creche bus while their parents perform," another young woman, presumably a nanny or another PA, explained from the end of the table.

"Creche bus," I repeated dumbly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered the accusations that both Tristram and Damien had made, about the sorts of debauchery this tour would involve. A creche bus filled with immaculately spoken nine year olds had never been part of what we'd imagined. Suddenly my heart lurched. What if I could actually bring Ian along when we toured?

"I've been touring for over half my life," Jezebel observed. "There is simply no reason on earth for it to be as uncivilised as people make it most of the time. It's just so much nicer when you bring your family along, eat properly, and stick to your normal routines. Speaking of which, Ms Gordon, a cup of coffee and a chocolate brownie is not a proper breakfast. Have some of the whole grain maltabella porridge and a cup of fresh fruit."

"Yes, Mum," I whined, then turned to wink at Lupa. "Does she treat all of her employees as if they're your age?"

Lupa snickered, but Maddie stared at Jezebel, her eyes huge. "Adopt me. Adopt me now, please."

Jezebel beamed like a mother hen. "Consider yourselves _all_ adopted."

 

For the first few days of the tour, it seemed utterly bizarre, like some kind of sanitised Disney version of a rock'n'roll tour. No drugs, no debauchery, no screaming matches, minimal drinking, and that there was tended to be fine wine with dinner, rather than liquor or piss-poor beer. We moved from place to place like a small, mobile city, never traveling and performing on the same day, instead getting settled before launching into a three or four day run at the venue. The economies of scale made sense with that kind of audience, I supposed, but I found I liked the deliberate routine of it all.

Every morning started with a yoga session, the kids had school lessons, unless they were on the bus to the next city, and every show started with a ceremony that was half prayer circle and half cheerleading chant. Although it was certainly not a democracy, and Jezebel presided over the entire assembled crew of musicians, dancers, stylists, roadies, and sound and light technicians like a Dowager Empress, dispensing orders like Papal Bulls through her three Personal Assistants, the entire organisation was remarkably peaceable and conflict free. Once a week, the entire crew gathered together like a small village hall meeting to _talk about our feelings_ and _work out any issues_ and other new age sounding bullshit that scared the shit out of my reserved British soul, but even I had to admit, her band were the least dysfunctional group of musicians I'd ever travelled with. Mostly, I behaved myself out of the sheer terror that I'd be called up in front of the whole circle and told to _hug it out_ with my bandmates, but it seemed to work.

By the end of the second week, at which point usually half my band were at war with each other, we were calm, healthy and relaxed. Maybe it was wrong to point the finger for this at Jezebel's civilized form of touring, maybe it was the lack of tension without Beth. I missed _her_ , I missed her devastatingly hilarious snide comments, her breathless excitement, the drip of gossip, the camaraderie, but my god, I did not miss the fights. But I couldn't help but think, this tour would have been good for her. Jezebel might have managed her, might have tamed her more self destructive moments - but who knew? She might well have rebelled against the cosiness of it all and got us all kicked out for breaking the prohibition against hard drugs.

When Amy checked in for her weekly phone call, she could hardly believe that we were the same band that had been at each others' throats on the previous tour.

"This is the best tour ever," Maddie insisted. "I don't ever want to go on a normal tour ever again. I _like_ yoga sessions and creche busses."

"I don't know. There has to be a catch. I feel an awful lot like we've joined a cult, sometimes," I protested.

"If this is a cult, I don't want to be deprogrammed. I'm teaching Japanese to the drummer's and the guitarist's kids on the bus. It's brilliant, way better than videogames," Emma shrugged.

"Yes," interrupted Amy. "I get that you're having fun, but how is the music going? Are you making new fans? Selling any merchandise?"

"We're actually already nearly sold out of T-shirts. Can you order another print run? And, in fact, double it?"

"That is what I like to hear. Just remember, _Over_ comes out next week, so I'll keep an eye on Billboard and let you know if there's any chart action. There's supposed to be full page ads in Spin and Rolling Stone, so keep an eye out if you see the latest issues."

"Ladies?" announced the PA, knocking at our hotel room door and sticking his head in. "Ms Jezebel just said to let you know that her hair technician and colourist will be arriving in her suite in about an hour, so if any of you want a consultation, please come up."

"Yes, please, put me down for a bleach job," I called out, then said goodbye to Amy. "I'm just going to pop out and get some magazines, see if I can spot any of these ads. I'm excited to see how we look as cartoon characters."

I made my way downstairs, then out, across the road to a newsagent. With a big grin, I pushed my sunglasses up onto my head and padded over to the racks to thumb through the magazines. Well, I had an hour or two to kill while my hair bleached, so I might as well not just look for ads, but see if there were any reviews of the Jezebel tour in the international press.

Picking up a wide selection of full colour glossy music magazines, I shuffled toward the cash register, then paused for a moment in front of a row of art magazines. For a moment, I blinked, then bent in closer to stare at the familiar face on the cover of some pretentious periodical. Close-cropped hair, stubbly chin, huge blue eyes, open slightly too wide, the single crease between the eyebrows... my whole face warmed in a smile as my finger slid almost subconsciously down the slick paper of Damien's face, blown up larger than life. With a guilty flush, I picked it up and slid it surreptitiously between Select and Rolling Stone.

Toting my pile of magazines, I made my way up to the Penthouse suite and flashed my pass at the bodyguards outside to gain admission to the inner sanctum. Jez was already ensconced in a low chair in front of a dressing table, her hair wrapped up in foil. "Oh, you are here. I'm glad. I just needed a little root touch-up, but Robert, this woman needs help."

"Oh my stars, what has it done to its hair?" the taller of the hair technicians gasped as he saw me. "That is an absolutely terrible colour with your skin tone."

"Thank you for being honest," I sighed, after a month and a half of people telling me it really didn't look that bad, honest, in certain lights. "I was trying to go for a light strawberry blonde..."

"That is not strawberry blonde, that looks like a black cherry threw up on your head. No, no, no." Pushing me down into the other chair, he threw a towel around my neck, then started mixing together various potions on a metal palette. "With your peach skin, you want a honey tone, maybe with some butter notes up by your face, fading to caramel at the back..."

"Stop it, you're making me hungry," I laughed.

"Manga, manga," Jez insisted, pushing a plate of carrot sticks and hummus towards me. "Are those magazines? What have you got? Ooh, is that Smash Hits? Let me see. I love Smash Hits, they call me Queen Jesus-a-belle, it's hilarious." As she pulled the magazine from the bottom of the stack, the others slid out over the floor, with ArtWorld Magazine on top, Damien's bright blue eyes staring up at me soulfully. "Ooh, who's he? He looks familiar. Very handsome man. Striking eyes."

"That's Damien. My... partn... ex-fianc... boyf... well, not really. But kind of. I don't know," I stuttered, wondering how, exactly, to put our relationship into words.

"Oh. One of those," Jez commiserated, bending over and handing me the magazine, now that my head was held firmly in place by a pair of hair technicians. "I think everybody has one. Mine was named Sebastienne. Argentine football player. Lupa's father. Broke my heart, right down the middle. Still, got a great breakup album out of it. Go ahead, read it, get it out of your system. You can tell me the gossip after you're done with it."

The magazine itself was only a few weeks old, but the interview had obviously been done months ago... early autumn. I'd been away on tour. As Damien had been sitting in his big, airy studio, I'd been somewhere in the midwest, with Thom - I felt guilty even thinking about it, but still curiosity drove me to read the article, wondering if he'd mentioned me.

Almost immediately, the first paragraph, the writer casually establishing setting... 

> Damien sprawls in the afternoon sunlight of the converted South Bank warehouse he shares with his fiancée, musician Kate Gordon.

My breath caught in my throat with the vicarious thrill of seeing myself in print, then the knife twist of disappointment that it was no longer true. Even through the pretentious twaddle of the article, his personality shone through, simultaneously cynical and death-obsessed, yet with the fresh childlike wonder of a little boy. Reading his words, I felt almost like he was in the room with me, wanting to just look up and see the sparkle in his eyes.

> Hearse shows me the latest piece he's been working on, the centrepiece of his upcoming show at the Tate Gallery. He grins fiendishly as he shows it to me, as if trying to measure my reaction. "It's the closest I've ever come to a self portrait. I promised my mum I'd do one some day," he muses, stroking his week's worth of beard.

Dammit, without me, he'd never bother to shave, would he? 

> "So it's a portrait to celebrate our marriage, really, me and Kate."
> 
> Has Hearse's new-found domesticity had an effect on his art, then? "Well, of course it's had an effect!" blusters Hearse, changing the subject. "I wake up in the morning, and it's raining, that has an effect. I walk down the street and see a bush of flowers - my god, that has an effect. God, they should put up warning signs - I mean, who told them that they could be that bright? Are they doing it just to be shocking?"
> 
> It's not as simple as Hearse likes to make it out. What makes the transformation noteworthy is that Hearse was previously notorious as a profligate boozer and womaniser, centre of the hearty lads' club of the London scene of hard-drinking musicians, actors and artists that congregates at the Groucho Club. This caused a stir, when pop star pal Alex Jones' girlfriend, Kate Gordon, called "time" to go out with Hearse.
> 
> "I mean, how do you put that into words, what she means to me? That's not a question for the philosophers and critics of the world, that's a question for the poets..."
> 
> For the artists? I suggest.
> 
> Hearse cackles like a fishwife. "Ah, caught on my own logic. But..." He looks around him, gesturing at the painting which he has been preparing. "You can't express something like that verbally. Or rather, I can't. How do you express how it feels, in words? You meet someone, and in that instant, your life changes."
> 
> So you are just an old romantic at heart, and you're going to tell us about love at first sight? That doesn't sit very well with your tabloid image.
> 
> Grinning like a cat toying with a mouse, Hearse takes out a cigarette, turning it end over end before lighting it. "Love at first sight? It's a cliché, just a phrase, isn't it? You can dismiss it, but the moment that you meet someone, and that little prickle of electricity runs down your spine...
> 
> "There comes a time when you realise that yes, this is the person you are going to be spending the rest of your life with. All that nonsense that the advertising and scientific worlds conspire to feed you using beauty and using sex to sell us stuff with the promise of eternal youth - it's all a lie. You fall in love and you realise that by the time you're 60, you're going to be shagging an old woman."
> 
> He pauses to light another of an endless series of cigarettes. "Then again, it was hardly the storytale love affair you would make it out to be. At first, she was like one of the boys - she could talk me under the table, drink me under the table." He lowers his voice with a wink. "I found out later, she could fuck me under the table, too, but don't print that or she'll kill me. I didn't care if she was nominally my best mate's girlfriend - I was completely knocked out, utterly smitten. It wasn't about love, it wasn't even about desire. You meet someone and they are, quite literally, the other half of you."
> 
> The Platonic Ideal? I suggest. One soul separated into two bodies?
> 
> He shrugs. "I don't know that I believe in that. It seems like fluffy philosophical talk to cover something a lot more organic, more visceral. But I knew that I had to have her. It came almost as a bit of a shock to someone as self centred as I can be - to realise that you care about someone else more than you care about yourself. Especially considering I think Kate hated me a bit, at first. She used to accuse me of being just a 'naughty little boy that liked to play with dead things he found at the side of the road.' But I think it's easier to turn hate into love than it is to turn indifference into love. Story of my life, really."

I grinned at the idea. The reporter had it so wrong - I hadn't broken up with Alex to go out with Damien. But Damien was right; I had hated him at one point, I had blamed him for my break-up with Alex, but he had taken that hate and turned it around, first to desire, and then to love. Was there a part of Damien that hated me right now? I wouldn't blame him if there was. But he said it himself - hatred was better than indifference.

I turned the page, and there was a picture of the two of us, a paparazzi snap from some nightclub - shortly before we were engaged. We were sitting, squeezed together on a leather sofa, Damien had one hand between my thighs and was leaning towards me with a naughty leer on his face. My head was half turned towards him with a tentatively delighted expression, as if I had been caught in mid-conversation by an indecent suggestion from him. We looked deliriously happy, flushed with sexual attraction and devoted to one another.

Noticing the tiny sigh I'd let out when I saw it, Jez craned her neck to look. "Oh, that's such a sweet photograph. You look so happy there." She paused, a naughty smile spreading over her face. "He looks like he's a demon in the sack, though. You can tell, just by that expression."

"Oh, he is, oh my god, he is."

"Is?" she probed.

"Was? I don't know." I made a sour face.

"Complicated, huh?"

"Very. I don't really know how we left it. I mean, if I hadn't been about to disappear off on a six-month tour, we might have got back together. But now..." I stared at the cover photo, running my hands down the side of his face, wishing that I could feel his prickly beard instead of the slick paper. "I don't know."

Jez raised an ironic, freshly-plucked eyebrow. "There is, you know, this new invention, you might have heard of. Called... the _telephone_?"

"I can't call him."

"Why not?"

"Well, for a start, I've got two men hovering around my ears."

"No, no, we are just finishing," announced the colourist. "And then you will have to sit for half an hour while the colour lifts out."

"If you want privacy, there's an extension in the bedroom," Jez suggested, waving her hand towards the open door.

"Are you sure?"

"Do it," she insisted. "My pride never let me do it, with Sebastienne, and I have regretted that, for the rest of my life."

Padding through into the bedroom, I shut the door, then sat down on the edge of the rumpled bed. Oh my god, I'm in Jezebel's bedroom. How many men and women would kill to be in this position? Hell, I was straight, but the thought of lying in Jezebel's bed vaguely excited me. But no. I couldn't actually think about sex with anyone except Damien. Picking up the phone, I dialed the international calling code for Britain, then rang his private number, still burned into my memory. Three rings. That's all I would give it. If he didn't answer in one... two...

"Hullo?"

"Damien?" I squeaked, surprised that he had answered so quickly.

"Kate." he sounded sleepy, only half awake.

"I'm sorry, Did I wake you?" I stuttered, not sure what I had planned to say.

"I wasn't asleep," he assured me with a slightly embarrassed giggle.

"What were you doing?" I probed, my heart skipping a beat, with a vaguely jealous twitch. I had simply assumed that he would be alone - had I been wrong?

"Nothing you need to worry about," he assured me gently. "Just sitting down in the studio _draw_ -ring. I'm supposed to be packing, but I found an old sketchbook, and well, you know. Inspiration struck."

"Packing? Where are you going? Anywhere exciting?" I remembered, forever ago last summer, when I used to help him pick out interview suits for his business trips.

"No, not that kind of packing. Packing up." There was a brief pause, then a deep sigh. "I'm selling the warehouse."

"What?" That felt almost like a slap in the face. "Why?"

"Too many memories."

"They can't all be bad, Dama? Can they?"

"No. That's part of the problem. Too many _good_ memories. It keeps me from working." His voice sounded indescribably sad and forlorn, but then he seemed to snap himself out of it. "Besides, they're redeveloping the whole block. Offered me an absolute packet for it, ten times what I paid for the place five years ago. Thought I'd make a clean break, get out of London."

"I can't imagine you out of London. Like a fish out of water." I felt like my world was crumbling, like a part of our shared past was about to vanish.

"Well, we'll see. It might not be for ages. I need to find another place to live, get all this art shit packed up... fuck, I might even just sell some of it. Anyway, enough about me, what are you up to?"

"Well, right now, I'm getting this dye you hate so much out of my hair."

"Back to blonde?" Damien purred. The pleasure in his voice reassured me as I replied my assent. "I'm very relieved to hear that." I floundered for a moment, wondering how to prolong the conversation, but he leapt into the gap. "How's the tour going?"

"Um, yeah, it's good. A bit weird..."

"Weird? Would on earth would you consider a weird tour? Is it rock'n'roll debauchery from end to end?"

"No. Exactly the opposite. It's all very family friendly and and wholesome. Half Jezebel's band have brought their kids along. We're all tucked up in bed as soon as we're offstage."

"Family friendly and wholesome. That doesn't sound like you at all," he teased.

"I don't know. I'm trying not to get drawn too much into the cult. Blowing raspberries in the back of the _group encounter sessions_ , reading ArtWorld Magazine instead of New Age Parenting, or whatever..."

"ArtWank Magazine, more likely. Those things are complete nonsense. Pretentious bollocks," blustered Damien. "Don't waste your time reading them."

"Cute cover boy, though," I teased. Damien merely snorted to express his derision. "He's wearing a baby blue turtleneck that sets off his eyes... big chunky black glasses that he doesn't usually wear in public because he's too vain..." Damien suddenly let out a chortle of recognition. "Of course, he needs to shave..."

"Oh, again with the shaving," laughed Damien. "Now I remember why I like being single."

"Do you? That's not what you said in the article..."

"Oh no..." he moaned, and I could just imagine him clutching his head, rubbing his eyes. "I don't even remember which article it was!"

"I just wanted to tell you... I know you said all these things months ago, but... God... I just wanted to tell you that it was really beautiful of you to say them." I paused. "Did you mean what you said about..."

"About love at first sight?" He remembered the article better than he pretended.

"Yes?"

There was a long silence on the other end, and then Damien growled. "Look, that was never the question, whether I loved you or not."

"I never said it was. I just wondered if it still..." I had been about to say _applied_ , but there was a sudden knock at the door.

"Kate! Hang on, we need to put the plastic wrap over your head so you don't stain my pillows" rang out Jez's voice from outside.

"Just a minute, Jez" I called out to her, and turned desperately back to the phone.

"Jez? It's Jez, now, is it? On first name basis with the Divine Ms Jezebel, are you?" he teased, trying to change the subject.

"In point of fact, if only you could see me, I am lying in the Divine Ms Jezebel's boudoir right now," I flirted back.

"Jesus Christ, thanks, I've got a stiffie now. Look, I know I told you I didn't want you screwing around on tour, but, to be perfectly frank, if you and Ms Jez there happened to fall into bed, well, I'd forgive you pretty quickly if you got polaroids of the event."

I burst out laughing. I could hear the leer in his voice, even down the phone line. "I don't think you're in any danger of that. She doesn't seem to be interested in me." But his talk of cheating and forgiveness dragged my mind back to the interview. "Damien, what you said in that magazine. Do you still..." I cupped my hand over the phone, whispering "Something that powerful, it just doesn't go away overnight, does it, Dama?"

"Kate!" called the impatient voice in the hall.

"Just a second," I called back.

"If you have to go, go," urged Damien, dodging the question completely. "Call me back another time."

"You don't mind?"

"No." A pause. "In fact, I think I quite like this."

I took a minute to catch my breath, then emerged. "Don't worry, I didn't get any bleach on anything. I didn't even get the chance to lie down."

"I wasn't hassling you. I just... well, I wanted to catch you before you got down to anything."

"Don't worry, no danger of that," I sighed.

"Oh. Nothing? That's a shame."

"Well, a bit of flirting. Ha, in fact, he asked us to take naughty polaroids of ourselves in bed to send to him."

Jez's face lit up. "Oh, let's."

"Look, no offense or anything, but we really don't have to..."

"Well, let's take them of you, then! When your hair is done, obviously, but for real! We have got two of the best stylists on the planet in this room. We should get you all dolled up, and take some pin-up photos and send them to him. In fact, I insist. I am now determined to get you two back together."


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a night out drinking with Alex and his new wife, Em, Damien is _confused_ about his feelings towards Kate Gordon. 
> 
> But does Em hold any secrets that can help him cope with the past?

"So why are we here, anyway?" Damien grumbled, surveying the dance floor with a bored expression.

"The girls," Alex giggled, and Damien followed Alex's eyes across the room until his gaze came to rest on Alex's wife, currently throwing her elegantly long limbs about in glorious abandon to the sounds of a throbbing dance hymn. _Check it out now, funk soul brother, check it out now,_ indeed _._ "Besides, Hearsey, I thought you liked to dance."

"Kate liked to dance. I just liked to _watch_ her dance," he confessed, feeling a vague tug within his chest. No, it wasn't his heart, it was merely his libido, remembering the way her breasts would move in time to the music as she shimmied back and forth. At that thought, Damien felt himself twitch subconsciously inside his jeans, more than slightly randy with the heat and the overbearingly sensual music. Not exactly the best time to be thinking about the flame he still carried for his ex girlfriend.

Still, the polaroids had unnerved him. Well, not unnerved him, but definitely shaken him up and rearranged his head, just at the point where he was trying to make up his mind. They'd come, over the course of about a week, postmarked from different cities across the US, always in pale violet envelopes that still smelled slightly of _girl_ when opened. The first one, anonymous, unexpected, had been a surprise, landing in the midst of a pile of bills, and he'd opened it, unthinkingly, trudging back up the stairs.

He nearly spat out his cigarette when the polaroid flopped out into his hands. There was Kate, his Kate, gloriously, radiantly blonde again, done up in glamour girl makeup, lying in the midst of a pile of satin cushions with Jezebel, both of them dressed in skimpy negligees and making kissy faces at the camera. _Wish you were here_ was scrawled across the bottom of the photo in permanent marker. He'd taken it upstairs and pinned it on the board above his workdesk, then almost immediately taken it down, as it was too bloody distracting for words. It was pinned up next to his bed half an hour later.

The next day, another scented violet envelope had appeared in the morning post, but this one he waited until he was upstairs and sitting down to open it. This one was just Kate, alone, wearing nothing but her bra and knickers, reclining on a sofa, seemingly engrossed in a copy of a magazine - if he squinted, he could make out his own face emblazoned on the cover in high gloss colour. Christ, way to appeal to his ego. Grinning, he'd pinned that one next to the first.

The one after that was funny, Kate kneeling pertly on a chair in a classic pin-up pose, holding up a large sheet of paper, which she appeared to be kissing from the red lipstick smear across it, on which was written: PETITION FOR DIVORCE: GRANTED. That made him cackle like a sick duck, feeling more than a hint of pride at finally having bested his rival. No. Wait. Thom wasn't his rival. That would imply he still had some vested interest in Kate's marital status, and really, he didn't. _Honestly_. Nevertheless, that photo somehow pleased him more than the first two.

More appeared over the next few days, one or two at a time, as the poses got more compromising - never overtly pornographic, but decidedly naughty. A bra-strap would slip down off one shoulder, revealing a nipple as she stared, kitten-like, at the camera. She pouted, she smiled, expanses of creamy white flesh revealed between black silk, suspenders, lace... was this really his carefree hippie girl, or was this Jezebel's doing? Whatever it was, it was working. He found himself stiffening in anticipation, every morning when he'd clomp downstairs to find a violet envelope waiting for him in the hall.

And the last one, that had come that morning, it was the most provocative of all. Kate leaned forward, her gaze meeting the camera directly, with that devouring expression he adored so much, her arm leading down her body, thumb hooked under the waistband of her knickers, pulling them just low enough to reveal a faint tuft of blonde hair between her legs. And there, written in permanent marker, just above the line of her hair, was a single word: _Damien_.

"Mmm. Kate always was a good dancer," Alex observed, snapping him back to the present, which was a good thing, as he was starting to get a serious stiffie again. "All bassists are - it's that rhythm thing."

"So how does that explain your lack of talents in the dancing department?" hooted Damien, sticking his friend rudely in the hips.

"Oh, do shut up." Alex shot him a wounded glance, then resumed his study of the woman on the dance floor, lighting a cigarette. "God, look at the way Em moves. She's fantastic. I should be down there... Em never complains about my dancing." Raising her arms in the air, Em started to move her hips in slow, lazy circles, throwing her head back and laughing, shouting something across to Kate Sutton, provoking an excited expression of undeniable lust to flicker across Alex's face. 

"Good lord, you two have been married for almost a month. Haven't you stopped mooning over each other yet?" sneered Damien, forcing down a vague whisper of jealousy. It wasn't jealousy because of Em, the way he had almost started to hate Alex when Alex had been with Kate, it was more like an aching envy of Alex and Em's entire life together. It should be him, the smug newlywed watching his beautiful wife showing off her moves on the dance floor.

"I hope we never stop," sighed Alex, cupping his chin in his hands like a schoolboy. Suddenly, someone caught Alex's attention, a small, rather heavily made-up middle-aged man with a shock of bleached hair, dressed rather inappropriately heavily for the warm nightclub, in a dove grey suit and a purple silk shirt. Dancing over towards Em, he picked up her hand and kissed it suavely, then air-kissed her on both cheeks.

"Don't worry, there's no way that man is straight. He's probably just using her to get to you, darling," Damien teased, threading his arm around Alex's waist and sticking a wet, slobbery tongue into his ear before he could protest. "Have no fear, I'll protect your manhood."

"Oh, you just wish you were man enough to take me on," Alex lisped back, then shrugged his friend off. "No worries, it's just Nick Moog."

The name drew an utter blank as far as Damien was concerned, but there was no way that he was going to admit his ignorance in front of the younger, hipper kids crowding around them. "He and Em seem awfully close."

"Oh, they've been friends for years. He got Em her first start in the photography world."

So Nick Moog was a photographer? Collector? He should know him, then. Dammit, where was Kate when he needed her to keep him posted on the ever-changing whirl of the hip London social circle?

"I wonder where Gary is? He's supposed to be the big clubber, not Nick. Oh wait, they're coming this way. Nick! Good to see you!" nattered Alex pleasantly, greeting him like an old friend.

"I am terribly sorry that we couldn't stay for the wedding reception," apologised Nick, or rather, purred. His voice was soft-spoken, but very polished, the accent bland but distinguishably Brummie. "But I'm so glad that you liked our gift."

"The Warhol silk screen? We loved it! Em put it up as the focal point of the living room, over the sofa. Real conversation piece."

"Oh, I'm so glad," beamed this Nick person.

Damien suppressed a pique of annoyance. In his old Covent Garden flat, Alex had always kept one of _his_ framed drawings above the sofa. Full of swear words and quite filthy, Em had always hated it - had she finally succeeded in banishing it to a boxroom?

"Have you met Damien?" ventured Em, catching his frown and smiling apologetically. "Damien Hearse, this is Nick Moog of AbSynth."

AbSynth! Of course! Kate loved them, played their albums incessantly while doing the dishes. He hadn't even known that he'd had dishes until Kate had moved in. "Nice to meet you," muttered Damien. "Are you done dancing? Shall we get a booth so we can drink properly?"

"Drinks!" proposed Alex, pointing out a booth then sliding off toward the bar.

"Oh! Damien Hearse!" squealed Nick, sliding in next to him in the booth. Stuck between Nick and Em? It was at moments like this that he longed for Kate and her bittersweet sarcasm. With his hand clenched proprietarily on her thigh, he felt calm enough to suffer any fool. "I _love_ your work. I've got one of your butterfly series in my studio. _I, Like, Like._ It's _so_ inspiring."

"The butterfly?" exclaimed Em. "I didn't know that was yours, Hearsey. I always really liked that one." The surprise in her voice vaguely irritated him - it was bad enough that she'd never liked him personally, but the fact that she disliked his work just added insult to injury. Then again, at least she had the guts to admit it, however tactfully and politely she phrased it. If there was one thing Damien couldn't stand, it was sycophants.

"I put a bid on one of your spin paintings at an auction at Christie's a few months ago, but I was outbid by a Getty," Nick sighed, folding his immaculately manicured fingers together. "I love the chaotic spontaneity of them, they're very... Jackson Pollock, in my humble opinion."

Damien resisted the urge to roll his eyes skyward and blow a raspberry, nodding appreciatively instead. "Well, never mind. I'll make you one next weekend."

"Really?" Nick's mascara-ringed eyes widened to the size of saucers.

"Sure. Here's my dealer's card." Damien dug in his pocket, hoping that the gesture would spare him another hour's discussion on Art with a capital A. He was here to drink and forget his worries, not work. "Give him a call, and he'll discuss the details with you."

"Well, thank you so very much. I can't stay long, I do have a young child after all. But Em, Kate, delightful, as always..."

"Oh, come on, Nick, the evening's just started," pouted Kate Sutton, and a strange look passed between them. "Come and have a dance." Nick wavered, and Damien wondered for a moment if there was anything more to the relationship that he wasn't noticing. Dammit, Kate could always spot at 50 paces who was having an affair with whom, and he missed the sauce she added to the evening.

"Oh, just one." Nick glanced at his watch nervously then extended his arm for Kate to take.

"That was sweet of you," interrupted Em's voice at his elbow, and he turned to realise that he and Em now had the booth to themselves.

"Pardon?" he grunted in reply. "Oh, the painting. Quarter of a million pounds for a few hours' work? It's hardly charity."

"You know what I mean." She patted his hand reassuringly, observing him carefully with those cool grey eyes.

"Well..." Damien shrugged, feeling nonetheless pleased with himself.

So, have you heard from your Kate recently?" she probed.

" _My_ Kate?" Damien smiled despite himself at the slip, remembering a particularly saucy polaroid of her splayed out across the bed, while Em looked a bit panicked.

"Kate Gordon," she corrected with a blush.

As if there could be any doubt as to which Kate was his. Even after all this time apart, everyone still thought of her as his. Even him, when it came down to it. "Actually, yes. She phoned me from Toronto or somewhere like that."

"Oh, really?" Em's grin of hopefulness was unmistakable. Damien forced the smile from his face, so as not to give her any ideas. "How's her tour going."

"I think she's really enjoying it, despite herself. She and Jezebel seem to be one of those pairs that either become best friends or worst enemies."

"I hope it's tending towards the former," Em laughed.

"Well, considering that she only got off the phone when Jezebel - or rather, _Jez_ \- dropped by to help her dye her hair..."

"Dye her hair?" interrupted Em. "Good grief, what colour now?"

"Back to blonde," replied Damien with a relieved sigh. He couldn't help himself; whenever he though of Kate, he still thought of that cloud of pale yellow hair.

"Well, that's a good sign," observed Em. "You know that women only have hair so that they can bond over abusing it."

"Is that what it's for?" laughed Damien. God, the more he found out about women, the more mysterious they seemed to him.

"So..." Em ventured. "What else has she been up to?"

Damien wasn't a fool. He knew perfectly well that Em was not interested in finding out how Kate's tour was, all she wanted to know about was their relationship. _Relationship_? The word was absurd. He and Kate had been broken up for months - hell, she had even been married to another man. They didn't _have_ a relationship any more. Wait a minute, Em couldn't possibly still feel jealous of Kate, could she?

"Oh, this and that," he replied evasively, taking a sip of his drink. Even over the top of the pint he could see the curiosity burning in her eyes. Oh, why not throw her a bone? "She told me that she'd filed for divorce from Thom."

"Thank god," ejected Em, tossing back the rest of her drink in one shot. So she was in a drinking mood, was she?

"Want another?" Damien offered.

"Please."

As he wandered up to the bar, Damien considered the wisdom of getting Em plastered. Although she and Kate had started on shaky terms, he had worked hard to reconcile them, and they now seemed to be fast friends. Maybe not hair-dyeing and make-up sharing friends, but Kate had been staying with Em and Alex the last time she had visited London. With his emotions rattling about jumbled in his head, he wanted desperately to talk to someone who knew Kate, who could explain her irrational behaviour and ever-changing moods. If he could get Em a little tipsy, perhaps he could pump her for information? 

When the bartender came ambling over, Damien laid a £20 note on the bar and asked for two extremely strong Long Island Iced Teas.

"Fuck! What the hell is this?" burst out Em, shuddering slightly, but swallowing her medicine like a good girl. If she was swearing like that in public, she was well tipsy already.

"Long Island Iced Tea," Damien shrugged. Tasting his, he was glad of the large tip that he had left.

"Nice. You always do manage to find the best drinks."

"So..." Damien gulped at his drink and tried to formulate a way of phrasing the question without sounding completely obvious. Then again, Em had brought her up. Or had she? Kate consumed his thoughts to such an extent that he found himself subconsciously slipping her name into every conversation and then getting angry and blaming other people. "Why _thank god_?"

"Pardon?" Em was slurring her words slightly. "Are you debating religion with me, Mr. Hearse? I've never been any good at those sort of subjects. Sexuality in Victorian novels, feminist ethics, morality in Shakespeare, all fine. But religion? I know better than to discuss that with a man as obsessed with mortality as you."

Damien smiled. The woman had spark and fire - he was beginning to understand why Alex had been attracted to her in the first place. "I did not mean the question in the abstract."

Em stared at him blankly. Now, come on, she was not a stupid woman, why was she playing dumb? Or was she playing dumb on purpose, trying to trick him into revealing his hand?

"Why thank god that Kate has filed for divorce?" Damien clarified.

Em smiled slowly, like a cat, stretching lazily, then blinked innocently. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that, Mr. Hearse," she teased. 

Bloody hell, she was enjoying this, wasn't she? She clearly knew something that he didn't. Kate had talked to her about him, he could smell it on her. _What? What? Good god, woman, spill it!_ Impatient as ever, Damien couldn't stand the thought of being left out of anything, especially if it involved Kate.

"But you do know something?" Damien probed, leaning forward.

Em stretched her hands in front of her, then curled up in a ball, giggling slightly as she made a school-yard gesture across her chest. "Can't tell. Sworn to secrecy. Crossed my heart and hoped to die."

Damien leaned back in his chair, gulping his drink as quickly as possible. Dammit, why wasn't he drunker? He had been drinking so much in the past few months that his tolerance had gone through the roof. This Em was a hard nut to crack, he would get nowhere like this.

"Besides," continued Em. "Why do you want to know about Kate and Thom's divorce?"

"Just curious. You asked incessantly about Kate and Alex when they were together," pointed out Damien.

"I did not," protested Em rather sulkily. "And I certainly didn't ask _you_." The emphasis grated on him.

"Am I so terrible, Em?" He smiled disarmingly, that charming baby-faced grin that Kate, at least, used to find irresistible.

Em burst out laughing. "Damien Bloody Hearse," she giggled, winking at him over her glass. "That's what they all call you. And the joke is that the swear word is only a pun." Suddenly, she straightened up, squinting at him. "Nah, you're not so bad once you get to know you." She paused. "Kate had a very positive effect on you, you know. She made you almost... human."

Damien winced involuntarily. He often suspected that a part of his personality had gone with her when she walked out, but he had never heard it phrased so acutely by another person. "And I'm not quite human when I'm not with her?" he replied bitterly.

"I didn't mean it that way," Em relented slightly. "I meant it as a compliment."

Looking away, Damien dug in his pockets for his cigarettes. Dammit, how could he be out of cigarettes? Looking around the table, he saw a crumpled box of Silk Cuts lying in the ashtray. "Crap."

"Here." Digging in her purse, Em extracted two cigarettes, lit them both and then handed one to Damien.

"It's about me, isn't it? That's why you can't tell me," probed Damien, refusing to let go of the subject, like a dog with a bone. "Please. If there's something about me that she was unable to live with, if it's something that I can change, even if it's something I can't change, goddammit, please just tell me, so I can stop wondering about it and beating myself up over it." 

The candid tone of his question surprised him almost as much as it surprised Em. "Damien, it's nothing to do with you."

"That's what she kept saying, but I don't believe it," he mumbled morosely.

"Damien..." Her face twisted, as if she were debating with herself whether to tell him or not. "Please, don't ask me to tell you, because I made a promise that I would not tell you, and I will not break a promise. But Damien... it's not you. You have to trust me on that." Throwing her head back, she sucked down an enormous draft of her drink, leaving it half drained. "Are you still in love with her, Damien?"

Leaning his face forwards into his hands, he suddenly felt a bit dizzy. What a time for the alcohol to finally decide to kick in. "Yes. Oh god, yes." He was surprised that it didn't glow on his face like a neon sign.

"She loves you, Damien, I know she wouldn't be pleased if she knew I told you that, but I didn't promise anything about not telling you that," Em confessed.

"I know that," Damien snapped. "She told me so herself."

"You do? Then what's the problem?" stuttered Em.

"I don't know," cried Damien. "You tell me!"

Em tossed the rest of her drink back and slammed the empty glass on the table, her eyes clouded, as if she were weighing a decision. "If I told you, would it make a difference?"

"It might," he sighed, looking up at her desperately. "Em, you might have been joking, but I'm not. I don't _feel_ quite human since she left me. I keep asking myself over and over again... _Why?_ It just doesn't add up. It doesn't make any sense. Kate refuses to tell me anything, and whenever I ask her, she protests just a little too strongly. So it _has_ to be me. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you this..." He caught himself just as he was about to spill his entire lonely and confused mess of emotions all over the booth.

"Damien, if you need to talk," soothed Em, reaching over and patting his hand reassuringly.

He needed to talk, he knew that, but he eyed Em apprehensively, trying to gauge whether he could trust her or not. Then again, if she could keep Kate's secrets, she could keep his. Em seemed like the kind to be good with secrets. Although he had started the conversation aiming to pump her for information, he had the funny feeling that he would end it with his private thoughts spread out dissected on the table.

"After everything she's done to me, I'm still... I'm just not the same without her. I didn't feel this incomplete before I met her, why do I feel so empty now? But at the same time, I hate myself for missing her, because she hurt me so fucking badly. Does that make sense?"

Em nodded slowly, chewing on a fingernail. "Yes, it makes perfect sense to me." She paused, then swept her blue-grey gaze up to meet his. "Can _you_ keep a secret?"

He shook his head gruffly. "Probably not." Em's face fell, her beestung lips curling into a pout. "Look, Em, if there is something that I should know, tell me." She remained silent, concentrating on stabbing the ice cubes in her empty drink with a straw. "Tell me!" he bellowed, slamming the flats of his palms on the table as he climbed to his feet. 

It was an impressive gesture under any circumstances, but Em barely blinked at the display. "Well, Damien, that sort of behaviour isn't going to convince me to tell you anything," she retorted in her best school teacher tone. If she'd been wearing glasses, she would have been glancing over the top of them sternly. Damien settled down uneasily until Em continued. "I'm certainly not going to tell you a thing if you threaten me."

"I'm not threatening you," sulked Damien, sipping at his drink

Em's face remained dark, troubled, but she chose her words carefully. "I don't want to betray Kate's confidence, but I just hope that this will maybe make you hurt a little less." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "While she was on tour, Kate got really ill, from an ear infection. She went some quack doctor who ended up prescribing her heavy tranquillisers. You know the ones, they call them Date Rape Pills cause if you mix them with alcohol, they cause impaired judgement, memory loss and black-outs. Except Kate didn't wake up raped, she woke up married to that little stalker freak."

Damien stared at her, not sure whether she was having him on or telling the truth. "That's preposterous. You can't expect me to believe that. I mean, of all the ridiculous, distorted, unbelievable fabrications that Kate has come up with in her life," he blustered, but the look on Em's face stopped him in mid rant. "Are you serious?"

"Alright, I'm over-simplifying slightly," Em shrugged, knitting her eyebrows together as she bent over. "But you don't seem that interested in listening to me." Em had no artifice whatsoever about her - her face was utterly transparent. This was the truth, as much as Kate had told her. Then again, what reason had Kate had to lie to Em?

"As if a girl that's been living the rock'n'roll lifestyle as long as Kate has would not recognise drugs like that," snorted Damien.

"I honestly think she did not know _what_ to do when Thom started saying that he was going to kill himself..." Em blurted out, changing the subject as if she felt unqualified to continue a discussion about illicit chemicals.

"Alright, that part seems credible enough," Damien admitted with a filthy scowl. "Why didn't she just tell him to piss off? She'd be doing the world of music a favour if he topped himself."

Em glared at Damien, then softened, excusing the jealousy of a wronged man. "Damien, I know you're angry... But considering she's been through a relationship with a man who killed himself as a form of emotional blackmail when she left him, you could be a bit more sensitive."

"So he drugged her and filled her full of booze, threatened to kill himself if she didn't, and she just couldn't help herself," he sneered sarcastically.

"I don't know that he did that, and I don't think it was on purpose. I think it - the whole black-out thing - was an accident."

"An accident? You're telling me that she threw away everything that we had, everything that I gave her, over a drunken, drugged-up _accident_? Oh, that changes _everything_ ," sneered Damien.

"I don't know how Kate ever put up with you," Em finally exploded. "Do you want to forgive her or not? If you do, then listen to me. If not, whatever! You just want to take everything, and twist it around until it's an argument. I'm on your side, Damien." He paused, not raising his eyes, but cocking his head as if he were listening. "I don't agree with what Kate did, I don't think it's right, or fair, or anything else, in fact, my heart fucking aches for you. But you asked me what she told me, and I fucking told you, even though I promised her explicitly that I wouldn't, so don't you go yelling at me cause you don't like what you've heard."

Damien stared at his drink silently, trying to digest it all. How did Kate ever put up with him? She was as naturally argumentative as he was, and would twist his own words right back at him. No, he was trying not to think of Kate in such a sentimental light. He had come to Em trying to still the whirling gale of the thoughts of her spinning around his head, but the conversation had only sped them on to hurricane velocity.

"What do you think I should do, Em?" he finally sighed, bending over and laying his head on the cool Formica of the table, his eyes huge and searching.

"You _do_ love her, don't you?" she asked, more than slightly alarmed. 

Damien flinched. It probably looked pathetic to her. People had grown used to the angry, blustering Damien, but no one had ever seen him show a moment of weakness like this. Even Kate? No, she'd seen through him from their first night together. It was a cliché because it was true. No one had ever seen him in the same way that she had. The naughty little boy that played with dead things. It was easier to scream and bluster because you could cover rejection more easily if you played it all as a joke. He nodded slowly. "I thought love was supposed to conquer all, isn't it?" he quipped, but there was little humour in his eyes.

She shrugged. "I don't know about that. But I think that in your heart, you know. I don't think you always want to face it, and sometimes it takes a really long time to get yourself to admit it, but you know it, deep down."

He paused, letting the words sink in, thinking about them and turning them over and over in his head, waiting for his heart to tug and tell him what to think and what to do. But his heart wanted nothing to do with the conversation, dragging him back to memories of Kate, lying in their bed, her hair tangled and spread out across the pillow, suddenly opening her eyes and turning to look up at him with an expression of pure bliss and contentment.

What kind of answer was that? No answer at all. And yet, in a strange way, it was the only answer that made any sense.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jezebel has ~plans~ for Kate Gordon. And so does Damien Hearse.

It was nearly dawn by the time Damien stumbled home, back to his warehouse. Still drunk, and feeling very frisky, he made his way into his studio and turned out various desk draws until he found his old Polaroid camera. Did it still have film in it? Yes. Perfect. Stumbling slightly, he made his way upstairs and flopped down on the bed, pulling his trousers off, then fussing with his shoes, wishing he'd had the sense to take them off before getting hopelessly tangled.

Now. Two could play this game. Aiming the camera while holding it with his feet was tricky, but after a couple of goes, he managed to make it work. After two misfires that caught more of the ceiling or the bedspread than his body, he finally got the image he was after. Giggling to himself, he searched for an envelope, then wondered where the hell to send it to. Now this was a problem that only one man could solve. Glancing up at the clock to see if it was even approaching a civilised hour, he picked up his mobile and rang Dale's office instead, leaving a long and rambling message on the ansaphone.

"Right, Dale, I need you to do something for me, something important, which requires your finesse. I am going be couriering over an envelope. Whatever you do, do _not_ look in the envelope. Don't even peek, it's not worth your sanity. But what I want you to do is find out the dates of Jezebel's American tour, and try to figure out where they'll be in about 3 or 4 days time. And then I want you to overnight FedEx that envelope to a florist in that city, and have them deliver it, with... I don't know. What's a fucking romantic bunch of flowers? Hang on..."

Bumbling over to the stack of books that Kate had accumulated while she was living with him, he dug through them. Yes, that was what he was looking for. A ridiculous Victorian novelty called The Language of Flowers, illustrated with sentimental water colour paintings. That was the sort of nonsense that Kate had liked, the kind of thing she would appreciate. He flipped through it for a bit, then turned to the back, happy to discover an index by message.

"OK, Dale, this is important, make sure you get these flowers right. Roses. White ones. Lily of the Valley. And violets, but white ones. Not purple, not blue, white ones. So yeah, an all white bouquet. And I want you to arrange to have that delivered, with the envelope I'm sending you, to Kate Gordon, at the next convenient date on the Jezebel Tour. Call me if you have any questions, but I have faith in you, Dale, if anyone can do it, you can. Catch you later."

_True love. A return to happiness. Let's take the chance._ If that didn't get the message across, he didn't know what would.

He made a cup of tea, then called a motorcycle courier to have his naughty picture taken across town to greet Dale when he got in to the office in the morning. There was a honk downstairs, and he stomped down to hand off the package, then noticed the morning post had come. Unfortunately, there was no violet envelope, a fact which caused him rather more disappointment than he was prepared to admit. But in with the stack of other post, there was a large, legal looking A4 envelope with OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS: DO NOT BEND stamped on the back in large red letters.

Thinking it was from the property developer, he turned it over and was about to open it, when he saw the name on the address. Kate Gordon. Damn, if only he'd seen it earlier, he could have sent it along with the naughty photograph, but then again, that would have spoiled the fun. It probably wasn't that important anyway, as most of the things that still came for her were junk mail, catalogues and the occasional invitation to a party.

Still, it intrigued him. Important official documents with big red letters all over them were far too great a temptation for him to possibly resist. Besides, he had to open it, and see if it were important enough to pass along. No. That wasn't fair, that would be violating Kate's privacy. It could wait, and be posted to her apartment in New York when he got the chance. Carefully, he set the envelope on the mantlepiece and decided to go to bed.

But the thought of it tormented him and would not let him sleep. Ten minutes later, he was back up and steaming open the envelope in a surreptitious way that could be easily resealed, if need be.

Well, that _was_ interesting. On the letterhead of a very old and very prestigious Chancery Lane firm was a document that looked vaguely like a contract, headed with the title _Amendment To The Custody Agreement of Ian Hamish Gordon Thornaby-Gore_. As he skimmed the legalese to get the general gist, a plan slowly formed in the back of his drunken head.

Padding back across the room to find his mobile, he dialed Dale's ansaphone again. "Oh, and Dale, I want you to book me a train ticket. To Bude, in Cornwall, wherever the fuck that is. Book me a B&B, I'll be staying overnight, maybe the weekend. And see if you can maybe get me an appointment with a local estate agent. There's a good man, call me at a more civilised time this afternoon and tell me what you've turned up. Cheers."

 

\--------------------

 

It was the second day of a week-long engagement in Seattle, and I was sitting on the floor of Jezebel's hotel suite with a guitar in my lap, trying to teach Lupa how to play the bass.

"Look, watch the fingers on my left hand, not the ones that are plucking. I'm playing a barre chord, which makes it easier for you. You see whatever fret I'm at, here..." I touched the strings of my own guitar. "...that is the root note of what you are going to play here. I reached out and touched the corresponding fret on Lupa's shortscale Daisy Rock bass.

"Like this?" Lupa asked, making a concentrating face as she hit her note. She was a fast learner; I'd have her playing box patterns in no time.

"Perfect. Now I'm going to play the next bit, see if you can work out what it is yourself." I moved my fingers up the neck, and shaped the next chord.

"That's a B, so I'm going to play... this," Lupa announced proudly, as the notes blended. "That sounds great! Our band is gonna be so cool."

Jez emerged from her bedroom, toweling her hair, and smiled at us. "If you two are gonna start a band, can I be in it?"

"No way, mom. Unless you want to play the drums, we don't have a drummer yet," Lupa replied with the kind of disdainfulness only a pre-teen could muster.

"Alright, I'll play the drums." Lupa sighed deeply and rolled her eyes. Jez burst out laughing. "Whenever I need any balance or humility in my life, I just hang out with Lupa. See, to my legions of fans, I might be the coolest woman in the world, but to my nine year old daughter, I am the most embarrassing and out of touch old woman in the world."

"Damn, and here was me hoping that Ian would stay as adoring as he was for the rest of my life. No such luck, huh?"

"Forget it. Once they're weaned..." She made a rather rude gesture behind Lupa's back, and we both laughed, causing another massive eye-roll from the child. "You know, you could bring Ian along, on this tour, if you wanted. We do have the facilities to look after a baby. And I think it's good for the older kids to have a real little-y along."

Lupa looked up in surprise. "A baby? You have a baby? Like, a little one? Can we meet him, Mom, can we meet him?"

I sighed deeply. I had been wondering when this topic was going to come up. In fact, there had been so many times I'd almost asked, but I didn't want to seem pushy or presumptuous - or maybe I just didn't want to admit that the Jezebel Cult was starting to look really attractive to me. "I don't know. Thank you for the offer, I appreciate it. But that's up to his father and the Courts right now."

Lupa's eyes grew huge, but Jez stepped in between us. "Lupa, OK, I think that's enough music lessons for today. It's time you went in your room and did your homework."

"Aw, Mom..." The precocious youngster looked seriously disappointed. "Are you going to have one of those grown-up conversations without me? It's OK, I _do_ know how babies are made."

"Homework. Now," insisted Jez, and Lupa finally trudged off, though, to be honest, I'd been glad of her company, as it had kept the conversation from getting too... heavy. I liked Jez, but I wasn't sure I trusted her enough to start swapping custody case tips with her. "Do you have a good lawyer?" Jez probed.

"I have a good lawyer," I replied tentatively.

"I can get you a better one..."

"I have the best family law specialist in New York City. Look, why are you being so nice to us? Offering me a lawyer, offering me free child care. I'm really starting to worry about the fine print where it turns out we sold our souls to the devil."

"Alright, Kate, you got me. Here's where I confess I haven't been entirely above board with you."

I had an awful sinking feeling, that terrible prick of insight where you realised that your worst instincts might have been right.

"You see, I want you."

I bit my lip, cautiously. Shit. How the fuck to respond to that? I mean, if there were anyone in the world that I would be willing to have a bisexual experience with, Jezebel would be pretty high on the list. But... I didn't love her. I loved Damien. "Look, Jez, I'm really flattered, but... I don't swing that way."

"Oh, you silly goose, not like that," she cackled, picking up a pillow and lobbing it at me. "I want you to produce my next album."

"What?" That was so completely the last thing I'd been expecting her to say that I didn't even really know how to process it.

"I feel like I'm getting into a rut, the past few records I've done. Like I'm in a holding pattern of making records that sound exactly like what people expect of A Jezebel Record. You know, why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. But I'm bored. I need to do something different. Branch out, work with new people. Shake it up. And when I heard your record, I just thought, this is what I should be doing - I heard so much of my former self on your record."

I blushed slightly, not sure whether to take that as flattery or not. "Well, it's kind of hard not to. You were a massive influence. You cast a huge shadow."

"Oh, the bittersweetness of that _were_."

"I didn't mean it like that!"

"I know exactly what you meant, and I'm not debating it. I'm agreeing with you. What I heard in your music was the kind of risks that I used to take. And I don't any more. And I need to be working with people who have the courage to tell me that." She paused, tapping the rim of her bottle of Evian against her lips.

"It wasn't just me that produced that album," I protested, changing the subject. "It was the whole band. Well, it was mostly me and Maddie, wrapped up in our electronic nest, but... we're a team. We don't come separately."

"I know. I've been trying to slowly seduce your band with little bits of kindness and outright bribery, but you're the one who's holding out on me. I can tell that you're the one I'm going to have to convince. Which rather makes me want to work with you more, because you're the one with the balls to resist me, to fight me on things."

I frowned, fiddling with the strings on my guitar. Why was I feeling such trepidation about this? My hands, as they always did when I played this guitar, seemed to go almost unthinkingly into the chord pattern for Codependent Love Song.

"You'd get points on the album, of course," Jez offered pragmatically, ever the businesswoman. "And we'd split the publishing, of course. I'm talking going 50/50 on the songwriting, not change a word, take a third."

"It's not about the money," I protested. "It's never about the money." That was a lie, actually. The money was a huge incentive. After being with Damien for six months, I had grown used to a whole new standard of living, one that indie albums on Destructive Records would never quite support, but that the publishing on a Jezebel album just might.

"What is about, for you? Artistic control? I'm not going to change anything with you lot. Sure... I can see that you've just lost a singer, and you're scared that I'm just going to step into that gap and take over, but..."

"No. Absolutely not. I'm sorry, but no." I didn't even have to think about that. In the back of my head, there was still a vague hope that Beth would go through rehab and come back to us. "We're not looking for a new singer. The chemistry we had with Beth, the chemistry the three of us have built up together, that's taken years. You can't just step into that."

"I'm not the slightest bit interested in joining your band." The way she laughed, as if the very idea were an absurdity, rankled me slightly. "I want you to produce my record. Because I think that's the next step for you. Like actors aspire to go on to _direct_ , I think songwriters aspire to become producers, and I know that you have what it takes. When I heard Codependent Love Song, I thought, there is some talent that you could take so much further..."

"That was Thom," I shrugged.

"The words were, but you needn't tell me that kick-ass slow jam was all him. That bit with the breathing and the 303, that had nothing to do with Radioshack and everything to do with the slow-building ballads on Beyond The Valley Of The Charms. Come on, Kate, what do you say?" She turned her eyes on me, and I felt the pressure building on me to say something, to make an answer there and then, which I didn't feel prepared to make.

"What do Maddie and Emma say? We're a team. I can't make the decision for them. This band is a democracy. We'd have to vote on it, it's all or nothing," I hedged, desperately  trying to think of a way to derail the conversation, when there was a knock at the door. Thankfully, the tension broke as Jez turned around.

"I haven't ordered anything," Jez observed, rather annoyed. "If Lupa has been on to room service while my back was turned..." But when she lifted the latch and swung back the door, there was a man standing there with an enormous bouquet of white flowers. "Oh, well, this is lovely. Thank you so much!" Suddenly she beamed, as she took the flowers and sniffed at them.

"Ms Gordon?" asked the delivery man, proffering a bit of paper that had to be signed.

"Oh, wait. No. These are for you. Kate?"

Who on earth could be sending me flowers? Especially sending me flowers to a hotel in Seattle. The location of Jezebel's hotel bookings was a closely guarded secret, due to a small army of rabidly obsessive fans.

"Do you have a secret admirer?" Jez was beside herself at the thought of some intrigue or gossip. "One of the crew, maybe? Oh, I bet it's one of the dancers, I've seen Sam checking you out..."

I sniffed the flowers tentatively. They were an old breed of roses, small, but with a delightfully delicate scent. And Lily of the Valley, and white violets, what an odd choice of flowers, though I did love the smell of all of them. Someone had clearly gone to a lot of trouble over this.

"Is there a card?" Jez demanded.

"I don't think so..."

"Oh yes, there is. Look at this battered old envelope, this looks like it's been through the wash." She snatched it from the top of the bouquet as I mused over the flowers. I had had a book once, about the Victorian language of flowers, but it had got lost somewhere in all my endless moves. White roses, they meant innocence - or did they mean forgiveness? I used to know this.

Jezebel shrieked, across the room, and dropped the envelope.

"Are you alright? What's happened?" Worst case scenarios crowded my head. A poison pen letter. Anthrax powder. A demented fan - didn't they screen these kinds of things on a big tour? But who would want to kill me? And if it was meant for Jezebel, how would I have known, if it was addressed to me. Jez's chest was heaving as if she were crying, or having some kind of attack. "What is it, what's the matter?"

"Oh my god, that is definitely intended for you." She was not actually crying, she was heaving with laughter, pointing to a polaroid that had fallen, face down on the floor.

I picked it up and my face went beet red. There, lit up in lurid technicolor by the flash, were a set of cock and balls, a body stretching off into the distance, an impish grin distorted by the odd angle. I knew that view, intimately, I knew the room, the familiar drapery of pink and purple silk on the wall behind the bed, I knew the slightly demonic grin, and I knew the handwriting, scrawled across the bottom of the photograph that said " _wish_ _you_ _were here_."

Damien.

"Can I use your phone, please?" I managed to squeak out.

"You damn well better call him quick!" Jez laughed and gave me some privacy as she left the room. "But think about my offer. Seriously. You and I could make beautiful music together..."

I didn't hear her. I was too busy looking at the picture of Damien. That was about as clear an invitation as he could have made. I stared at the photo as I dialed the familiar number, not even so much at the cock as at the devilish grin behind it. But the phone didn't even ring, it went straight to voicemail. "The BT Cellnet customer you are trying to reach is out of range," blared the electronic voice, then a brief hiccough of a message from Damien telling whoever it was to leave a message on the - expletive - ansaphone.

"It's me. I fucking love it. I fucking love you. I guess I'll ring you later."

"Not in," I called back to Jez as I gathered up my things. "I'll try him again later, but I'm just gonna take this downstairs, out of the reach of curious nine year olds."

I tried ringing again, later in the afternoon, cursing the 12-hour time difference back to England, but there was still no answer. I might as well wait until after the show, in the middle of the night on the West Coast, in the hope of catching him in the morning, just before he went to bed. At that point, I gave up, and just left a message telling him "I'm in the Continental Hotel in Seattle, but you know that already, obviously. Room 1622. Ring me when you get this. Please. OK, I'm going to bed. I'll catch you later. Sweet dreams."

 

I woke to the sound of insistent tapping at my door. At first, I just pulled a pillow over my head, hoping that whoever it was would just get the message and go away. Had I forgotten to hang the Do Not Disturb sign on my doorknob the previous night? No, it was only 8am, far too early for the cleaners. But whoever it was, they were not going away.

Finally, I crawled out of bed, wrapped one of the hotel's big fluffy robes around me and made my bleary way to the door. "Who is it?" I demanded, more than slightly annoyed. As I put my eye to the peephole, I saw nothing but an enormous blue eye taking up the entire fisheye lens, and leapt back, disturbed.

"Room service," came the reply, far too jaunty for this time of the morning.

"I didn't order any room service," I shot back, pulling my robe tighter around my waist. Had they got the room numbers mixed up, or was this Lupa's idea of a joke? Then again, considering how neurotic her mother was about having macrobiotic organic vegan food at every turn, it didn't surprise me that the child had developed a naughty habit of having greasy fried food delivered the moment her back was turned.

I was about to turn around and head back to bed, when there was another flurry of taps. "Are you sure? Someone in Room 1622 didn't order the full English... with all the trimmings... hot beef dripping... meat and two veg..."

I was about to shout back that they definitely had the wrong room because I was a vegetarian, when it suddenly penetrated my sleepy mind that room service had an English accent. A distinctly Northern English accent, with the edge of a Leeds burr to it.

Turning around, I put the chain on the latch and peered out into the dim light of the hall. A figure was hunched against the doorjamb, a short, stocky man with bright blue eyes and a baby faced grin, dusted with dark stubble. I threw the door open. "Damien!"

"Jesus Christ, Kate, took you long enough to work it out. Harder than breaking into the Bank of England, getting in this place." For a moment, I just stared at him, then threw my arms around him, showering his face with kisses. "Oh christ," he murmured as I pressed myself against him, then he wrestled his suitcase into the room and slammed the door behind him. "You are an absolute fucking cocktease, and I cannot wait to get the fuck inside you."

He picked me up, bodily, and carried me back across the room, even as I wrapped my legs around his waist. His hands were inside my robe as he stumbled towards the bed, both of us crashing down into it together. His hands pushed my negligee up, out of the way as I reached for the belt of his jeans. There was no time for foreplay, just fierce biting kisses, like animals trying to devour each other as he pushed his hand between my legs, feeling for the dampness before following with his cock. I cried out, but clawed at him urgently, pulling him on top of me, just wanting to grab onto him and hold him inside me. It was brutal, desperate, almost violent, as I hung onto him for dear life, feeling his bucking hips battering at me, but I was beyond pain. It felt like he had barely got started when he shuddered, and tensed, his lips drawing back from his teeth in a grimace, then a beatific smile passed across his face, and he slumped back against me.

"Shit," he panted, laying his head between my breasts and kissing me tenderly. "I'm sorry. I waited too long for that, I couldn't hold back. Give me a minute and I'll... wait, no." Raising his head, he grinned at me wickedly. "Damn, woman, you have stolen my Khundalini from me, and I must steal it back."

I burst out laughing, reaching for his head and gently smoothing down the whorls of hair that stuck out about the crown of his head. "Not this nonsense again."

"Do you believe that was nearly a year ago?" He moved slowly down my body, kissing my stomach and making little circles with his tongue.

"It was yesterday, and another lifetime ago," I sighed, then shivered as his tongue hit a sensitive patch.

Suddenly Damien stopped, just as he reached the top of my bikini line. "Humph."

I raised myself on my elbows to look down at him. "What?"

"Something decidedly missing," he snorted, tapping impatiently at my groin.

"Oh, you liked that?"

His eyes flashed with a spark of pure possession that made my heart suddenly swell with pride. He was mine again. " _Yes_." Climbing off the bed, he dug in his abandoned bag for a minute, then returned with a sharpie. When he returned, he placed one hand on my stomach to smooth my skin, then slowly, deliberately wrote his name across the top of my quim.

"Are you signing me? Does that make me a work of art now?"

He nodded as he replaced his hands with his head, moving his face lower and darting his tongue between my lips. My body spasmed with pleasure as he started to work in tiny circles around my clit. There was no one, ever, who could manage to do quite what he did to my body, with a tiny flick of his wrist as he worked his little finger inside me. The building orgasm washed across the top of my legs and seemed to go on forever, echoing up my spine like an ebbing tide. And when he raised his head to look at me, with that little smile of pride dusted across his face, my heart melted.

Still grinning, he moved up the bed to lie next to me, wrapping his arms around me like a blanket. "So you're divorced now. Do you fancy a quick flight down to Las Vegas, then?"

Conflicting emotions swirled across my mind. "Are you back for good?"

He nodded slowly, tracing the outline of my face with the tip of his pointed nose. "Yes. I don't care. I love you more than anything else in this world. Including my stupid bloody pride. We've both made our mistakes. I think we've both suffered enough for them. Everything that has happened, I forgive you. I just want you back."

I clung to him, feeling like the room was slowly flooding, and I was drowning, but there was a tightness in my chest, and a sense of rising panic where there should have been only joy.

When he finally spoke, it seemed as if an eternity had passed, his face growing worried. "You will still marry me, right? Well, once the divorce from the little red-headed freak is final. How long do we have to wait?"

My face fell, as I looked away from him, staring out the window at the curve of the bay in the distance. "Damien..."

"I'm sorry, it's too soon..." His brows were furrowed, that line of concentration appearing just above the bridge of his nose.

"No, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath, then plunged into it. My fears, this time I was going to say them, aloud, and have them out. I wasn't going to let this awful feeling destroy us again. "I love you, you have to believe that. I love you more than anyone or anything in the entire world, except maybe my son. I will be with you, however you want me. I'll live with you, I'll grow old with you, I'll bear your children. I'll be faithful to you, I'll tattoo your name across my body to remind myself I belong to you, body and soul, like you belong to me. But _please_. Do not ask me to marry you. I don't ever want to feel trapped like that again."

The frown slowly gave way as I gently massaged his forehead, smoothing his eyebrows into unruly black caterpillars. "You want to be with me, you just don't want to be married to me?"

"Not to anyone."

He seemed to think about it for a minute, then smiled and kissed me on the tip of my nose. "OK. I think I get it. You don't want to be trapped. If you're free to leave at any time, then you can _choose_ to stay."

"That is exactly it."

He took one of my hands between his, playing distractedly with my fingers. "OK, if that's what will make you happy, that's what we'll do." He paused, then a wicked grin spread across his face. "Though, you don't actually have to get name tattooed on your ladybits. No matter how much that idea actually really turns me on."

I laughed evilly, then grew suddenly serious again, reaching down and touching his name. "Actually, I think I want to. A reminder to _myself_ , though, not to you. I want your work on my body."

"Christ, I'm getting another stiffie." But just as I thought he was going to roll me over and lay me again, he leapt out of bed and started digging through his bags. "Can you order some coffee? I've got some really important news, and you might want to get prepared for it."

"There's a coffeemaker in the room, I'll just put on a pot. But what on earth could be so important?" Climbing out of bed, I picked up my robe, but his leer made me discard it again as I strode across the room to make coffee.

"This came for you. I'm sorry I opened it, but it looked like it might be important." Pulling a slightly beaten up brown envelope out of his bag, he handed it to me. "It is."

Pulling out the sheets of paper, I instantly recognised the letterhead of Tristram's solicitor. An amendment to Ian's custody agreement? I flipped through it quickly, trying to digest the terms and conditions.

"Oh, for fucks sake... hand me my coffee, I definitely need it. Why is he _still_ trying to fucking control me, through Ian?"

"He's not, Kate. Read it again. He's agreed to everything that you've asked. He's prepared to share Ian 50/50, so long as you coordinate and plan your tours around school holidays in the future..."

"But look at this. He wants me to buy and maintain a permanent residence in the UK until Ian turns 18. I can't afford to buy a fucking house in Cornwall or Devon or wherever the fuck he lives..." Not even if I produced a Jezebel album, would I have that kind of money.

"But _I_ can." I looked up to see he was holding another sheaf of papers towards me. Brightly coloured papers, with pictures of houses and barns and beautiful sea views. "I went down there last week. Actually, I took Tristram to lunch, and I'm pleased to report that I'm fairly certain Ian remembered me - or, at least, didn't bawl the place down when he sat on my lap."

"You saw Ian?" my heart flip-flopped inside my chest. There was a part of me that still believed Damien had only ever been so lovely with my son for my sake, rather than because he had formed any kind of attachment himself.

Damien grinned with something that looked an awful lot like paternal pride. "He is growing up so like you it's almost uncanny. I know you're not supposed to say this about boy babies, but he is fucking beautiful. And strong and clever and all those other masculine things he's supposed to be, of course," he teased.

"Do you have any pictures?"

He smiled and pulled out his phone, showing me some grainy photos of a huge toddler I could barely believe was my son. "Now come on, you're supposed to be looking at houses, not at babies. Look at these cottages and tell me which one you'd like to see Ian growing up in."

"Cottages? These are fucking mansions," I laughed, as the architect in me struggled with the mother for supremacy, torn between floor plans and baby photos. "Oh my god, look at the view from this one. Can you see all the way to Wales?"

"Not quite, that's the Isle of Lundy. But that one's well nice. It's got two or three barns, a stable and this outbuilding that would be perfect to make into a studio."

"Is that a chapel round the side? A studio? What a brilliant idea! The acoustics in those old chapels are supposed to be amazing, that would such a great place to record."

" _Art_ studio," Damien corrected.

" _Recording_ studio. You can have your studio in the stables. I claim that chapel as mine. Five bedrooms and a guest cottage... what the fuck are we going to do with five bedrooms?"

Damien moved closer, kissing me softly on the underside of my calf as he leered up at me. "We could get a start on making more babies to fill them up. And fill up that creche bus of Jezebel's with a brood of little Hearses."

"How do you know about the creche bus? It's a state fucking secret, to dissuade the stalkers."

"Oh, I spoke to Jez about it yesterday evening, wanted to make sure there's somewhere for Ian to stay, next week in LA..."

"What? When did you speak to Jez?" I protested before the other half of the sentence sank in. "Hang on, wait - Ian? My Ian? In LA? What are you talking about?" My heart stood still.

Suddenly Damien's face was a perfect round O of shame. "Oops. I think I just spoiled a surprise."

"What surprise? Spill it?" Jerking my leg away from him, I kicked him softly.

"Shit, I was sworn to secrecy. I worked it all out with Tristram. Your first proper week of custody. Ian and the nanny are flying in to meet us in LA. It's going to be the whole family, the three of us, together for the week. I was going to tell you all this - but I rang the wrong number last night when I got the message - and Jez said it would be more fun to surprise you."

Tears started to roll down my face as I stared down at him, leaning his head against my knee. Surprise didn't even begin to cover it. How could he walk into a hotel room in Seattle and simply hand me back my entire life? "I don't believe it. Is this really it?"

"What?" His eyes were huge, his pupils like pools.

"Is this where we really get a happy ending, me and you?"

"No." He shook his head slowly. "This is not a happy ending. This is a happy beginning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends the massive Deep Field Trilogy. I hope you've had as much fun reliving the story (or maybe encountering it for the first time?) as I have. Over the years, I've considered writing an addendum or "Where Are They Now?" because these characters have stayed with me a long time, and I often found myself wondering what they'd have got up to.
> 
> Emma Noguchi turned up in the Pulse Universe, eventually joining the techno supergroup, The Imaginary Numbers with Sandy Percy. She quit The Charms after the third album, "Charms Sister/Lovers" and started Womb, a record company with an exciting and widely regarded predominantly female roster. She moved to Berlin to be with Klaus, before getting into polyamory and living in an extended family/commune with her husband, her boyfriend, her girlfriend, her husband's boyfriend and her husband's boyfriend's girlfriend. She got involved with political activism, and ended up with a UN post for the advancement of women's rights.
> 
> Beth Blair was somewhat more complicated. While still in rehab, she met and had an affair with former child star, Bobbie Billions, which ended disastrously, and saw her returning to drugs to cope with the break-up. At one point, I saw things getting really dark, with her dying under mysterious circumstances (fingers were pointed, no one quite sure if it was suicide or an accidental overdose, with dark rumours circling round, when the manuscript of her tell-all autobiography, including unsavoury details of her father's life... disappeared). But no! I think after a second round of rehab, this time she quit drugs permanently, and probably settled down with someone older who provided some stability in her life.
> 
> Maddie Cerbone, together with Kate Gordon, became one half of a super-producer team that, after re-defining Jezebel's sound, went on to score hit after hit. (Something along the lines of Xenomania or Bloodshy & Avant.) She became very involved with Emma's record company, doing talent scouting and A&R for many of the bands that ended up signing to Womb. She and Carlos are still married, they still live in the building in Alphabet City, though three of the apartments have now been knocked together into a house, as they now have four children. (Carlos quit his job in advertising to be a househusband, though he still paints occasionally.)
> 
> Kate Gordon and Damien Hearse never married, and remain somehow delightfully, disgustingly infatuated with one another. They had two more children, and Ian spent more and more time with the new family, possibly preferring the more lax atmosphere of his disorganised but doting step-father's household. As above, after the Charms stopped touring, Kate and Maddie became a renowned production team, splitting their time between the original Charms studio in NYC and Kate's own personal studio in North Cornwall. Kate and Alex remained lifelong best friends, albeit with a rocky patch in the middle, while Alex and Em split up, and Kate was the only person brave enough to kick Alex in the butt, tell him he was fucking up the best thing that had ever happened to him, and pack him off to rehab. After Alex sobered up, Kate repaid a long-ago favour, and helped broker a reconciliation and an eventual remarriage. Alex and Em's daughter, Alexa, became very close to Ian Thornaby-Gore, and at one point we were considering marrying them off, but firstly, that would be way, way too Wuthering Heights, and secondly, Ian will probably grow up to be a rather irresponsible young man. While still in his mid-teens, Ian starts a boyband with his mates, and gets signed on the strength of his parents' connections (against his father's will, but of course Kate is far more sensible, and just makes sure they get a good lawyer) and ends up becoming a teen heartthrob... uuuhhh, probably right around now, that would be happening. One Direction, eat your hearts out.
> 
> If you have any comments, or questions about "What happened to old...?" leave them below and I will do my best to answer. Thanks again for reading!


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